An animal rights group has sued UC Davis and the University of California to try and force the campus to release video footage and photographs of monkey experiments the group says must be made public under state law.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says that papers published by researchers at UC Davis’ Primate Research Center suggest that they separated infant monkeys from their mothers, isolated them in cages, and subjected them to stressful situations — including forcing them to watch videos of aggressive monkeys.

“Our tax dollars are being used to terrorize infant monkeys, and UC Davis is trying to keep it secret,” Kathy Guillermo, PETA’s senior vice president, said in a statement. “The university is obligated under the law to release this video footage, and they’re fighting it because they apparently don’t want the public to see these monkeys’ misery.”

PETA says it began requesting five years of video footage, photos and indexes of such visual records in late 2017, citing its right under the California Public Records Act to view the material.

UC Davis provided 17 minutes of footage, including 10 minutes showing a monkey alone in a steel cage looking for a way out. But the campus cited a “researcher’s privilege” in declaring that’s all it had to supply.

Heather Urzua, an analyst in the office of the campus counsel, emailed PETA on Dec. 21 and said the privilege is based on a “strong Constitutional interest in the right of scholars to conduct research without interference.” Urzua also cited the Public Records Act itself, which lets public agencies withhold materials when doing so “clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure.”

That could be tough to prove, said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Rafael.

“The Public Records Act operates under the presumption that records are open to the public, so the burden is on the university to show that withholding the records outweighs” the public’s right to see the videos.

Snyder said the university’s core argument — that their researchers need to be shielded from public scrutiny to do their work — “is not a ridiculous argument.” But, he said, it’s not clear whether that statement would stand up in court.

“It’s an interesting dispute,” he said.

In its suit filed Thursday in Yolo County Superior Court, PETA argues that public interest in the videos, photos and documentation is significant, and that they are “critical to understanding the nature of UC Davis’ primate experimentation program.”

The California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis — one of seven similar centers around the country supported by the National Institutes of Health — keeps about 4,500 monkeys, mostly rhesus macaques, according to the site, which adds that researchers rely on “nonhuman primate models” to look into “potential cures, treatments, and preventive measures” in studying human disease.

The visual records sought by PETA are connected to four researchers whose work is not in the area of disease prevention, but on “sociability and behavior — the science underlying how animals relate to each other,” said UC Davis spokesman Andy Fell.

Fell said all the animal research on campus is subject to review by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Primate Center’s internal review committee and a federal review on animal use.

In its suit, PETA cites nine of 24 instances since 2013 that UC Davis violated the federal Animal Welfare Act and was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service — most recently for dropping a guinea pig 5 feet last year. The creature hit the floor and died soon afterward.

Among the other alleged violations were staff negligence resulting in the death of a rabbit; isolating two newborn monkeys for four months; and failing to provide adequate veterinary care, resulting in damage to a monkey’s kidney and internal bleeding. The campus was fined $5,000.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov