PETA AU Global 2021 Issue 4

Once again, PETA’s legal team found a way to protect birds when federal laws had failed them: Baton Rouge – where LSU is located – has a bird-protection ordinance, which states that it’s “unlawful to trap, hunt, shoot or molest” birds. So PETA called on the Office of the Parish Attorney to investigate Lattin’s capture of wild birds. The city’s animal control director met with Lattin and other LSU personnel to advise them that trapping birds in Baton Rouge was illegal. However, she quietly appealed to the city to change the ordinance. The city caved, and – without any public discussion – added a loophole exempting birds used in experiments. PETA’s Eagle Eye on LSU LSU seems to want to keep members of the public in the dark about the projects their taxes are funding: PETA submitted seven requests for public records to the university between May 30, 2019, and June 9, 2020 – including records

PETA will keep pushing until the birds’ welfare is taken into consideration and they are afforded the protection they deserve.

Owls: © iStock.com/JohnCarnemolla

Take Action Now Please call Johns Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels at 410-516-8068 and urge him to

Frame: Photo © iStock.com/duncan1890 • Thumbtack: © iStock.com/Altayb • Sparrow: © Mikalay Varabey/Dreamstime.com

end Mysore’s owl experiments. Saving animals from experiments is also a finger swipe away: Sign up for PETA’s mobile alerts at PETA.org/Text .

A PETA “owl” swoops in on JHU’s graduation ceremony to protest crude brain experiments on barn owls. I

documenting the deaths and deliberate killings of birds in Lattin’s laboratory. But LSU continues to withhold records. So PETA is taking the university to court to compel it to disclose

Bird Torturers Mysore and Lattin ‘Most Wanted’: Meet PETA’s

singling out individuals or groups – including living, breathing animals – for congressionally imposed punishment, such as the death sentences imposed by Mysore and another experimenter, Christine Lattin. Lattin Tortures Sparrows PETA suspected Lattin was up to no good at Louisiana State University (LSU), because she had previously tormented sparrows at Yale. So the group submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained documents revealing that she had apparently killed approximately 80 sparrows – after dosing them with sex hormones and exposing them to

records, as required by the Louisiana Public Records Act, and is determined to bring Lattin’s cruelty to light in order to end it.

terrifying calls from predators. She had plans to capture and kill more than 100 additional birds, so PETA had to act fast.

Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch is joining PETA to sue the US government as a “next friend” to owls at JHU. Grab her enchanting tee at PETA.org/Store .

B irds are devoted mates and parents, experiments, and the only US law that offers any meaningful protection to animals in laboratories – the US Animal Welfare Act (AWA) – doesn’t even recognize birds bred for experimentation in its definition of animals . In the UK, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986 includes limited protections for birds – but it also includes loopholes big enough to drive a truck through. The law has failed birds used in experiments, so helping them calls for creativity and determination. Luckily, those are PETA’s specialties. Mysore Cuts Into Owls’ Brains In a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Shreesh Mysore and his assistants cut into barn owls’ skulls, insert electrodes into their brains, restrain clever problem-solvers, and impressive athletes. Yet they are subjected to deadly

for them. In a groundbreaking case for animal rights, PETA – joined by a former Maryland secretary of health, a then-JHU student, and Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch – is suing the federal government as a “next friend” to the owls. The suit is the first ever to allege that an experiment is unlawful because it imposes a death sentence on animals that violates the US Constitution. Jesse Helms’ Hideous Legacy That death sentence is a result of the 2002 Helms Amendment, a legal loophole drafted by the late Sen. Jesse Helms, a notorious opponent of civil and animal rights. It deprives millions of birds, mice, and rats of the AWA’s meager protections simply because of their species. In the US, these sentient, intelligent species constitute 99% of all animals used in laboratories!

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them, and blast them with jarring sounds and images for hours at a time. Ultimately, all the birds are killed.

PETA Files Suit Fortunately, these owls have powerful friends fighting

PETA’s novel lawsuit seeks to have the amendment abolished, noting that the US Constitution prohibits

Global 9

8 RAGE AGAINST THE CAGE