Shouting "Hey Harvard, what do you say? How many primates did you kill today?" and other slogans, a group of local animal-rights activists circled Harvard Yard yesterday afternoon, protesting the University's involvement in experiments on animals.

According to the demonstrators, the New England Regional Primate Research Center-funded and staffed by the University-subjects over 1,500 primates to "the horrors of animal experimentation."

A pamphlet they distributed described a number of experiments they say are carried out at the center, including forced artery blockages in baboons, brain damage in infant primates and the administration of cocaine to squirrel monkeys.

Center Director Ronald D. Hunt agreed that the pamphlet's description accurately captured the nature of at least one professor's research, but defended the center's practices as "very similar" to those of other universities.

"All the animals are under veterinary care," Hunt said in an interview yesterday. "These [animal experiments] are approved by the Harvard Committee on Animal Research and by the National Institutes of Health."

Demonstrator Casey A. Harrigan, one of 14 area college and high-school students marching behind a bullhorn-toting leader, said that yesterday's march was not the first such protest against policies at the South-borough, Mass., facility.

"We've protested before at Southborough-we've even gotten arrested," said Harrigan, a student at Emerson College in Boston.

The protesters passed two Harvard University Police Department officers in patrol cars in front of Stoughton Hall, then proceeded out of the Yard without incident.

According to Harrigan, the group drew members from several organizations calling themselves the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Animal Liberation Brigade (ALB), the Primate Freedom Campaign (PFC), and the Coalition Against the Fur Trade (CAFT).

Harrigan added that there have been previous demonstrations on the Harvard campus, and that there will be more.

"We'll be back," she promised.