news

Monday, Oct. 13, 4PM - UC Berkeley National Primate Liberation Week Demonstration

Where: Meet at the corner of University Ave. and Oxford Way (in front of the Li Ka-Shing Center Construction Site, which would lead to a seventy percent expansion of the existing Northwest Animal Facility come March 2010)

Why: It's National Primate Liberation Week, with demonstrations and press conferences happening across the country. At least 15 primates are exploited in invasive research at UC Berkeley.

For more information on Primate Liberation Week, visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/event-nplw-announce.html

To download the 2007 USDA report for UC Berkeley, which lists the number of Animal Welfare Act-covered animals and details the horrifying experiments on macaque monkeys conducted by Professor Jack Gallant, visit:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/10/08/18543508.php

9/15/08

Contact Stump & Sons Inc. - animal torture subcontractors

Stump & Sons Inc. is a subcontractor for the Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences at UC Berkeley. Scheduled for completion in March 2010, the Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences would include a basement level laboratory that would increase the existing Northwest Animal Facility by seventy percent. 40,000 non-human animals are currently exploited at UC-Berkeley at any given time in heinous, esoteric, and unscientific research.

Contact Stump & Sons and let them know how you feel about their decision to assist in the torture of thousands of sentient beings. Say no to vivisection expansion.

Stump & Sons Inc
Painting And Decorating Contractor
Sand And Water Blasting

Stump & Sons Inc.
8460 Baldwin Street
Oakland, CA 94621-1923
Phone: (510) 430-9321
Fax: (510) 430-9997
E-mail: stumpandsons@sbcglobal.net

And remember to visit these individuals and bring them a legal home demonstration in response to their company's greed, apathy, and complicity:

Clarence Edward Stump, RMO/CEO/PRESIDENT
24799 Townsend Ave.
Hayward, CA 94544

Margaret Mary Stump, RMO/CEO/PRESIDENT
24799 Townsend Ave.
Hayward, CA 94544

David Edward Stump, OFFICER
507 Teasdale PL.
Hayward, CA 94544

Robert Edward Stump, OFFICER
267 Ebony Way
Hayward, CA 94544
(510) 581-1879

Joann Christina Morgan, OFFICER
1018 Sahara CT.
Hayward, CA 94541

For legal and informational purposes only.

9/3/08

Please contact Kingdom Pipelines, Inc.,

Kingdom Pipelines Inc. is a sub-contractor for UCB's Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, the facility that would expand the existing Northwest Animal Facility by seventy percent, and where tens of thousands of animals will be exploited and killed every year if the university gets its way:

Kingdom Pipelines, Inc.
1177 Mission Rd., Suite D
South San Francisco, CA 94080
Phone: (650) 952-9055
Fax: (650) 952-9056
Contact: Brendan Murphy (President)

8/15/08 - FBI visit in Oakland

Two FBI agents showed up unannounced at an individuals workplace in Oakland on Friday 8/15. They seemed more obsessed with who they think her friends might be than anything. They made mention of Santa Cruz and some type of flyer. They wanted to know if she could lead them to two individuals. They stated that they are going to have to keep investigating if the two named individuals don't give them a call. The person made clear that she didn't know anything and was busy at work. After being told several times to leave, FBI Agent Andrew Myers finally took a hint and left his card.

7/1/08
Take action against Cal's vivisection expansion.

More vivisection coming to UC-Berkeley: Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. Contractor and subcontractor information now added.

Construction of the the Li Ka-Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences at University Avenue and Oxford Way in Berkeley has begun (project construction started in April 2008) and is scheduled for completion by March 2010. This facility will include a basement-level vivisection lab that would expand UC Berkeley's existing Northwest Animal Facility by seventy percent.

The Zimmer Gunsul Frasca firm of Portland (http://www.zgf.com/) was chosen as the Executive Architect.

The McCarthy Building Company , Northern Pacific Division, based in San Francisco (http://www.mccarthy.com) is the general contractor.

Project Management for the construction: UC Berkeley Capital Projects (www.cp.berkeley.edu)

Please call, fax, and email these individuals and let them know what you think of their decision to assist in the torture of thousands of sentient beings.

Teri Mathers, Project Manager UC Berkeley Facilities Services/Capital Projects
1936 University Avenue, Room 232
Berkeley CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-643-1428
Fax: 510.643.3309
tmathers@cp.berkeley.edu

Robert G. Bluhm, Assistant Director UC Berkeley Facilities Services/Capital Projects
1936 University Avenue, Room 222
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-643-7166
Fax: 510-642-7271
rbluhm@cp.berkeley.edu

Rich Henry, President, McCarthy Building Company, Northern Pacific Division
Office Phone: 415-397-5151. ext. 1308
Email: rhenry@mccarthy.com

Frances M. Choun, Vice President Business Development, McCarthy Building Company, Northern Pacific Division
Office Phone: 415-397-5151 Ext. 1314
E-mail: fchoun@mccarthy.com

Call him at home and let him know how you feel, or visit him with a legal home demonstration in response to his complicity:
Robert G. Bluhm, Assistant Director UC Berkeley Capital Projects
Home:
2828 Kelsey ST.
Berkeley, CA 94705
510-848-7641

Subcontractors:

Drilltech Drilling & Shoring

Drilltech Drilling & Shoring (http://www.drilltechdrilling.com) is a specialty drilling subcontractor with offices in Northern and Southern California.

Northern California Office:
2200 Wymore Way
Antioch, CA 94509
Phone: 925-978-2060
Fax: 925-978-2063

Southern California Office:
22223 Forest Boundary Road
Corona, CA 92883
Phone: 951-277-9700
Fax: 951-277-9701

R & B Equipment Inc.

R & B Equipment is another company providing their services and assistance to construct the new lab where thousands of animals will suffer and die.

R & B Equipment, Inc.
2215 Dunn Rd.
Hayward, CA 94545
(510) 782-3774

Jatagan Security Inc.

Providing security services, including 24 hour wireless video surveillance of the site.

Jatagan Security Inc.
1418 N. Market Boulevard
Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95834
Telephone: (916) 285-0396
Fax: (916) 977-0278
Email: sales@jatagan.com

Kingdom Pipelines, Inc.,

Kingdom Pipelines, Inc.
1177 Mission Rd., Suite D
South San Francisco, CA 94080
Phone: (650) 952-9055
Fax: (650) 952-9056
Contact: Brendan Murphy (President)

Disclaimer: Please keep all communications with these individuals and businesses legal and polite.


Our Targets: Those responsible for the torture

Disclaimer: Please keep all communications with these individuals legal.

Yang Dan's research: Cats bolted down in stereotaxic devices (pictured) and electrodes inserted into their brains.



Home:
Yang Dan
140 Panoramic Way
Berkeley, CA 94704

Office:
Professor Yang Dan
230D Barker Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-643-2833
Lab Phone: 510-643-3935
Email: ydan@berkeley.edu

UC Berkeley's Yang Dan has been using and abusing cats and rodents for years in theoretical visual experiments, like her natural scenes model, where she recorded the world through a cat's eyes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/471786.stm

Supposedly performed under sufficient anesthesia, Yang Dan's cats and other animals are paralyzed with a drug, a hole is drilled in their skulls and electrodes inserted directly into their brains. They are placed in "stereotaxic device with ear bars, eye bars and a mouth bar to stabilize the head position." Their eyes are "glued" to "posts." They are subjected to visual stimuli, and the electrical firings of roughly a dozen single brain cells or less are recorded continuously for up to "72 hours" non-stop until the "cortex stops giving normal visual responses." Rats are placed in a "light-tight box, and kept under no-light conditions for 48 hours to 1 week prior to recording," or one eye would be sewed shut. Rats will also undergo fluid deprivation to "motivate" them to perform tasks to test Dr. Dan's "visual discrimination paradigm."

The purpose, she claims, is to "understand how visual neurons code and process information" and how "connectivity between them are modulated by visual inputs."

From a 2003 paper of Yang Dan's:

A total of 18 anesthetized adult cats were used. ...Single unit recordings were made in area 17 [of the brain] using tungsten electrodes. Eye movement was minimized by mechanical stabilization. Visual stimuli were generated with a personal computer and presented with a monitor.

Jack Gallant's research: Fluid deprivation and restraint chairs (pictured) on non-human primates. Electrodes inserted into their brains for vision experiments



Home:
Jack Gallant
1057 Siler PL.
Berkeley, CA 94705

Office:
Professor Jack Gallant
3115 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Lab Phone: 510-642-2606
Fax: 510-642-5293
Email: gallant@socrates.berkeley.edu

Jack Gallant performs invasive single-cell brain recording in vision experiments on Macaque monkeys. Fluid deprivation is used to make them perform eye movements or visual fixations while they are in restraint chairs with their heads bolted still as single-cell activity is recorded invasively with wires sticking into their brains

From a 2005 document detailing Gallant's primate research and extreme cruelty:

"Currently, two projects approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee involve regulating water in experimental studies. The projects require regulating the water of the animals during training and recording procedures. The animals are on a schedule that regulates their access to water to daily laboratory sessions of up to 6 hours per day during training and neurophysiological recording. Juice or water rewards are used during these times as a positive reinforcement in shaping the animal to perform the required tasks using operant conditioning techniques... ...During this reporting period, nine animals underwent fluid regulation."

"Prolonged physical restraint of alert animals is prohibited unless essential to research objectives. All such restraint must be justified to and approved by the ACUC... ...The ACUC approved three projects that require physical restraint of unanesthetized animals. The second and third projects involve research that tracks the eye movements of a non-human primate to specific visual stimulation. The animal sits in a specially designed chair, which allows him to freely move his limbs and adjust his posture while in a head restraint. In-chair training is initiated several months before the actual study begins, to allow the animal to adjust to an increasing duration of restraint... ...The animals are chaired between 2-6 hours per day, 5-7 days a week for studies which may last up to 3 months... ...During this reporting period, nine animals underwent physical restraint."

From a 2004 paper of Gallant's:

We recorded spiking activity from 74 well isolated neurons in parafoveal area V1 of two awake, behaving male macaque monkeys. Extra-cellular activity was recorded using tungsten electrodes. A custom hardware window discriminator was used to identify action potentials. During recording, the animals performed visual fixations for a liquid reward. Eye position was monitored with a scleral search coil.

Stephen Glickman's invasive reproductive experiments on female hyenas



Home:
Stephen Glickman
1488 Summit RD.
Berkeley, CA 94708
Home Phone: (510) 540-0598

Office:
Professor Stephen Glickman
3131 Tolman Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
Office Phone: 510-642-5797
Fax: 510-642-5293
Email: glickman@socrates.berkeley.edu

For more on UC Berkeley's animal exploitation and those responsible, visit:
www.pixelexdesign.com/stopcalvivisection/vivisectors.html

6/11/08 - San Francisco Chronicle smear piece on East Bay animal rights action

Press smearing of animal rights activists heats up.


A sensationalist and trash piece that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 11. Full of flat-out lies and deceptions. Foremost among the deceptions being the portrayal of vivisector Frederic Theunissen's experiments on birds. These birds are immobilized and bolted down in stereotaxic devices, have holes drilled into their skulls, and electrodes inserted into their brains for recording. In most of the studies, the birds are killed for brain study.

Another huge deception is that Ralph Freeman's torture of kittens and cats is shedding light on Epilepsy. We haven't even read Freeman try to make this claim.

Protests at UC animal-lab workers' homes

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Officials have been trying to keep it quiet, but 24 UC Berkeley researchers and seven staffers have been harassed by animal rights activists in recent months, in some cases having their homes or cars vandalized.

"What they all have in common is that they all work in animal research," UC Berkeley spokesman Robert Sanders said of the targeted employees.

In several instances, the activists have shown up outside researchers' homes in the middle of the night with bullhorns and chanting, "Animal killers." Sometimes they have scrawled slogans on the sidewalk in chalk.

On more than one occasion, rocks have been thrown through the researchers' windows and their cars have been scratched up.

"Sometimes (the activists) go up to the door," Sanders said, "which can be very frightening to the family."

According to UC, there have been 20 reports of damage to researchers' homes in Berkeley, Oakland and El Cerrito since August, including seven broken house windows and three vandalized cars.

Thirteen researchers have been harassed on more than one occasion, authorities said. One researcher, who studies how cat brains work for epilepsy research, has reported seven incidents at his home.

No specific group has been identified as being behind the harassment. The actions appear to be coordinated through an animal rights Web site that includes photos of researchers, descriptions and photos of their experiments, plus their home addresses and phone numbers - along with the disclaimer, "Please keep communications with the individuals legal and nonthreatening."

However, it doesn't appear that activists are always following those instructions.

The latest incident occurred the weekend of June 1 in Berkeley, when a group of activists showed up during the daytime outside the home of a researcher who studies the effects of pesticides on mice. A rock was thrown through the researcher's window and a window at a neighbor's home, Sanders said.

Even a researcher who studies bird singing has been harassed and had his house vandalized.

"To study bird songs, you need to get them into the lab," Sanders said. "You want to record them and see how they raise their young."

It's not exactly the animal torture chamber one usually associates with the most negative depictions of animal research. But "apparently, these activists don't believe in any kind of animal research," Sanders said.

"As you can imagine," he added, "some of these faculty members are pretty freaked out."

By the time the cops show up, the protesters are usually gone. As a result, there have been no arrests - only an occasional citation issued for disturbing the peace.

Officials have been trying to keep the protests quiet, in part out of concern that publicity will only cause more incidents and an escalation in violence. At UCLA, animal rights protests have included attempted firebombings and one instance in which a researcher's home was flooded with a garden hose.

Looking at the numbers, it's pretty clear that keeping things quiet in the press hasn't toned down the protesters much. It's just as clear, however, that the protesters aren't reaching their goals, either.

"All of our researchers are adamant that their research is critical and that they are not going to quit," Sanders said

5/11/08 - UC intimaidation - lawsuit threatened in effort to further hide what goes on behind close doors in the vivisection labs

Message received from Dreamhost:
From: "DreamHost Abuse/Security Team"
Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 4:51 pm
Priority: Normal

Hello,
We have received a couple complaints from UC Berkeley regarding your site, here:
http://pixelexdesign.com/stopcalvivisection/newlab.html
Here is the original complaint:
-----------
Re: Take down request -- Inappropriate personal information posted by DreamHost Web Hosting customer website "pixelexdesign.com"
Abuse, DreamHost:
The following letter has been sent via US mail. We are now forwarding it electronically.
The "pixelexdesign.com" site, a customer of DreamHost Web Hosting, is enabling the publication of endangering personal information on pages entitled "Meet the Vivisectors at UC Berkeley!" and "New Vivisection Lab at UC Berkeley."
The web pages are posted at:
http://www.pixelexdesign.com/stopcalvivisection/vivisectors.html and
http://www.pixelexdesign.com/stopcalvivisection/newlab.html.

The material includes personal home addresses and home phone numbers for individual researchers and for another University employee, work locations with specific room numbers in buildings on campus and work phone numbers for the researchers and a number of other University employees, and also company contact information for project contractors. The posting of such personal and work location information in this context clearly endangers these members of our academic community and associated individuals.

Therefore, we request that your company immediately take whatever level of action is necessary to remove the material in question, up to and including disabling the entire site if required.
This request is also made in light of Government Code section 6254.21 which protects public officials, such as University employees, and their families from the possibility of intimidation and harassment in their private homes, by prohibiting the kind of publication of home addresses undertaken on the "pixelexdesign.com" website.
Your cooperation in this important matter will support efforts to enforce legal and appropriate use of the Internet. Absent immediate confirmation that you agree to take down this inappropriate personal information, my Office will be referring this matter to our legal counsel for their action.

Sincerely,
Shelton M. Waggener
Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
University of California, Berkeley

----------
Upon asking them for more information on the legal justification for their request to remove the content, they also sent us:
----------
As you are no doubt aware, statements may be unlawfully threatening even if they do not contain an explicit threat. Rather,
"Whether a particular statement may properly be considered to be a threat is governed by an objective standard -- whether a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of intent to harm or assault."

Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists (9th Cir. 2002) 290 F.3d 1058, 1074.
"Alleged threats should be considered in light of their entire factual context, including the surrounding events and reaction of the listeners." Id. at 1075.
Thus, where posting information about individuals has had the effect of inciting violence or harm, subsequent posting can be an unlawful, unprotected threat. Id. at 1079.
Those are exactly the circumstances here.
University of California faculty and staff whose names and home addresses have been posted have been subject to attacks, vandalism, home invasions, and even targeted for bombings. For example, the Stop Vivisection web page advertises a planned night-time "vigil" at the residence of one faculty member whose home has been subject to multiple attacks by groups of masked vandals shouting threats, pounding on his door, and breaking windows. It is well known that web postings of the sort on the ?Stop Vivisection? web site result in such unlawful conduct. They therefore constitute unlawful threats.

----------
We would appreciate if you could respond to us as soon as possible to let us know what your position on these legal arguments are.
Thanks for your understanding and prompt cooperation in this matter.

Karl

--
- DreamHost Abuse/Security Team


SATURDAY MAY 10 AT 10PM - VIGIL AT THE HOME OF JACK GALLANT.

On Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 10PM, we will hold a vigil at the home of UC Berkeley primate torturer Jack Gallant.

Jack Gallant is the only current known primate vivisector at UC Berkeley.

The non-human primates languish at UC Berkeley because of him. Gallant subjects these animals to misery with the use of restraint chairs, bolting their heads still, fluid deprivation, and electrodes inserted deep into their brains.

Primates in captivity self-mutilate. They tear out their own hair. They exhibit the same symptoms of depression that prisoners of war suffer.

His home is located at 1057 Siler PL. in Berkeley.
www.mapquest.com/directions if you need directions. It's in the hills - so it could be a task to bike up there. We'll be carpooling, so just email us if you need a ride at stopcalvivisection@hushmail.com