BREAKING: Activist Occupies Tree on University of Washington Campus in Protest of New Animal Lab

from No New Animal Lab

Seattle, WA — This morning an activist with the No New Animal Lab campaign climbed to the top a giant sequoia on the University of Washington campus and unfurled a 32-foot banner reading “Prez Cauce and UW Regents: If you build it, we will come. No New Animal Lab!”

The tree is off of the UW’s Red Square, across from the building in which President Ana Mari Cauce’s office is located, and No New Animal Lab supporters have gathered under the tree. The No New Animal Lab campaign is a national campaign to convince the University of Washington and construction company Skanska USA to terminate plans to build the Animal Research and Care Facility, which will expand the number of primates and other animals that the university can use and kill in research by thousands.

The campaign is calling on President Cauce, the UW Board of Regents, and others in positions of power to terminate their plans to build the ARCF.

“If this lab is built, thousands of animals, not unlike those we share our homes with, will suffer in captivity their entire lives and die having been nothing more than a test subject. I climbed this tree this morning to let the UW bureaucracy know that they cannot continue with plans to build the lab, condemning thousands of animals to a life of psychological torture, without the quality of their own lives being negatively affected. If you build it, we will come to your homes, to your offices, to your favorite restaurants and your golf courses, until you stop the killing,” said the activist who dropped the banner.

Today’s banner drop marked the start of the week leading up to the March on University of Washington. On April 25, the No New Animal Lab campaign will have a march of hundreds of people, beginning with a rally in Red Square at 2:00pm.

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