“The results are that animals are restrained by clamping their heads for up to 23 hours a day,” she writes. “They are denied food and water. They have implants surgically implanted in their brains and eyes. They are forcibly addicted to drugs and alcohol and given fatal diseases. Animals have had their eyes sewn shut, their heads smashed in, and been burned, blinded, maimed, and starved.”

Prime among these labs using allegedly invasive experiments, says Rayshick, is Hauser’s primate lab at William James Hall.

But Hauser insists that no such backroom, unethical procedures exist at his lab.

“We are very open about what we do in the lab, which is non-invasive behavioral work,” Hauser says. “Our website makes clear what we do and where we are and so there are no secrets.”

According to the lab’s website, several cotton-top tamarins are kept in homeroom cages.

The animals are taken in transport cages to testing rooms—both of which they enter “by their own free will”— where “non-invasive behavioral research” is performed, the website says.

An example of an experiment performed in a testing room is one that investigates vocal communication. Out of seven total testing rooms, two are designated for this research, and those rooms are “used for recording naturally produced vocalizations.”

Though he defends his lab’s research, Hauser says that some protesters raise issues worth discussing.

“I share some of their concerns,” he says. “On the other hand, I don’t support violent approaches to these issues.”

Rayshick agrees that extreme actions—like breaking into labs and trying to free animals—are not her cup of tea.

“Our group is a...federal non-profit,” she says. “Our by-laws specifically state that all of our actions are legal and peaceful.”

ACTIVISTS AND AMBIVALENCE

For Katharine B. Dixon, president of the Law School’s Animal Legal Defense Fund, the line between rightful protest and acts of extremism often blurs.

“My personal position is that there may be a place for [extremist activity] in extreme circumstances,” says Dixon. “On the whole, [it] doesn’t serve the movement. It does grab an audience and it does bring attention to the issue but I don’t think it’s the type of attention that will bring changes.”

Although the aspiring attorney staunchly opposes any sort of property destruction, she finds herself still undecided as to the merit of milder tactics, such as attempting to free animals from labs.