Carleton has denied the claims of a petition published Jan. 6 accusing the university of conducting cryogenic freezing experiments on chimpanzees, calling them completely false.
The petition, which has collected thousands of signatures, claims Carleton’s scientific labs have been subjecting chimpanzees to extremely low temperatures leading them to suffer “a slow and lingering death.”
Carleton said no such experiment has ever taken place on campus.
“We do not have, nor have we ever had, the capacity to house non-human primates at Carleton,” said Beth Gorham, Carleton’s public affairs manager.
“It is highly unlikely that studies such as those described in the petition would be permitted in this country under any conditions,” she said.
A photo provided with the petition—allegedly of Carleton’s labs—can be found elsewhere on the internet and is a stock photo taken in Arizona, United States.
Another photo of a chimpanzee appears to actually belong to the Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary in the United Kingdom.
The petition, at 2,287 signatures Jan. 8, is one of several active petitions that appear to be targeting universities worldwide for alleged inhumane experimentation on a variety of animals.
Other universities targeted include the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, Oregon State University, as well as Odessa University in Ukraine.
“Our petitions are being moderated but unfortunately we can not verify facts for thousand of petitions,” Dragos Vana, registrar of yousign.org, said via email.
“[Verifying facts] is the sole responsibility of the petition creators and signers, we can only provide the web platform and the means to do so,” he said.
Gorham said the university is looking at whether any action will be taken towards the false petition.
