Interviewed on WRIC 8 News

A few months ago, I was contacted by Will Lowery, a Richmond, VA-area lawyer who was investigating claims that Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) had retired research monkeys to a sanctuary. Will was skeptical because the school could provide no details about this placement, which seemed strange. I verified at the time that I (on behalf of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance) had not spoken with VCU about monkey retirement. Will said he would keep checking around.

Flash foward to the present day, and Will had FOIA'ed a number of documents regarding to monkey retirement by VCU, and found nothing. He contacted me again, and this time I did an in-depth inquiry of US primate sanctuaries. Not only did I find no evidence of VCU retiring monkeys to the nine NAPSA member sanctuaries, but there was no evidence of them retiring monkeys to any accredited primate sanctuaries in the country (and even a few unaccredited facilities.)

I told all this to WRIC Richmond reporter Kerri O'Brien, and the segment aired this week.

The video can be seen here. Unsurprisingly, VCU admitted that they never retired monkeys to sanctuaries. I am grateful to WRIC for revealing the university's shocking lapse in judgement and for helping me spread the message that NAPSA member sanctuaries remain willing to work with laboratories seeking to retire monkeys... with full transparency, of course!