Hola, mis amigos and amigas!
I am sorry to say that some of my Pallid Bat friends in Texas are still being subjected to horrible treatment at Texas A&M. Please read this detailed (and graphic) description of the treatment they are receiving while being researched. This type of treatment is not necessary, as the experiments have already been proven without the use of any animals! Will you please write to the people listed at the bottom of this bulletin to help free the bats? A&M is starting to listen, so it's critical to keep writing for several weeks. We can help my Pallid Bat friends if we all try. Encourage A&M to end the research and retire the bats to a rehabilitation center so they can go back to the wild where they belong. Please re-post this as a bulletin over and over, or copy and paste it and email your friends... and remember to keep writing!
xoxox
~Lupita, The Congress Avenue Bridge Bat
CLICK HERE to SIGN a petition to save these Pallid bats!
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Thank you all for your continued support in this fight to save the Pallid bats at Texas A&M University in Christopher Quick's Lab. We have provoked them to into launching an investigation of his horrible treatment of these bats.
However, the fight is not over!
It is absolutely critical that we keep the pressure to make sure that they know they can not sweep this under the rug. It's going to take all of us to save these poor bats. Please continue to write letters to voice your complaints and disgust of the research of the bats and your desire to have the entire colony retired. Below I have contained the original email I first composed that you may include in your letter of protest to remind them of the issue at hand.
Write or rewrite your original letters and send them TODAY!
We have the added opportunity here of setting a precedent of standards of how bats will treated in research, and let everyone know that cruelty and misuse will not be tolerated.
Please write now. The bats lives depend on it.
Many thanks,
Abby
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Original Letter:
I am in need of your assistance with a critical matter involving a dwindling colony of pallid bats in a remote location in West Texas. These bats are continuing to be subjected to inhospitable and cruel experiments and housing
once they are captured and placed into captivity. The following information outlines the years of cruelty these pallid bats have been subjected to.
The following information will shock and sadden some of you, but please read this in its entirety to gain a full understanding of why this capture and experimentation should not continue.
Dr. Christopher Quick, who heads this research, works for Texas A&M University in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology.
Dr. Quick has been allowed to perform research on pallid bats for several years. He takes the bats from a 20 + year, known roost. As a result of the removal of so many bats, a steady decrease in the population has occurred. In the
past few years he has been allowed to take over 50 pallid bats, the majority of them females. This means that over 40 females were not allowed to give birth to one pup a year for over 4 years, resulting in the loss of 160 bats with in a four year time span, many who would have also reproduced.
The experiments that are performed under Dr. Quick's care are not entirely terminal and as a result, these bats have been subjected to an unnatural environment long-term, and forced to work during the day when they should be asleep. They are exposed to up to 15 different types of drugs, alcohol and periodic painful medical procedures without sedation. They are used in experiments for up to six hours per day. Witnesses have seen the bats struggling for so long during experiments that they eventually began urinating blood due to the stress of the experiment.
The majority of Dr.Quick's literature states that the bat is placed in a box and is lightly covered with gauze during experiments. What is not explained is that the gauze is on the outside of the experiment box the bat is restrained in. The bat is made to lie on its back in an unnatural position; a plastic plate is then inserted over the bats arm bone acting as an arm bridge preventing the bat from lifting its arm. The top of the box is then closed over the bat's body and the box is screwed shut with wing nuts. The bat's wing and fingers are then forced to lie open and flat, being held in place with q-tips that are secured at the end with silly putty. Several bats have been so stressed during these experiments that they chew threw the skin on their arms and began chewing on their arm bone just to try and free themselves from the experiment box.
Bats are also subjected to what is called a pressurized box. This box is used in the same fashion as the one previously described, but it is air tight. The bat is subjected to pressure on its body to create vessel dilation in the vessels of its wings (similar to a hyperbaric chamber used by humans). This experiment runs on average 4 hours. This research has been allowed to continue despite the fact that these incidences were reported to Texas A&M University's Animals Compliance Committee, who choose to turn a blind eye to what was happening behind closed doors. It was even suggested by an Animal compliance chair member that 'if the bats were still eating and hanging upright then they must be happy'. When it was requested to retire bats that have been used for more than three years, another committee chairperson responded by saying, 'how do you know the bats are unhappy in captivity, can you prove that they do not like being part of research?' Many pages can be filled with the concerns voiced by those alarmed by seeing injuries the bats have received during experiments, such as, wing tears,broken fingers, and many burned wings. Not to mention the lack of supervision and control Christopher Quick has over his lab.
A large portion of the bats that currently remain in his captive colony at A&M have been there for over four years. They live in a room with concrete walls and meager roosts. Their only form of enrichment was being fed crickets, which they were allowed to hunt for on the ground of their enclosure, and that was stopped once the facility where the bats are housed complained about the noise and the amount of cricket's escapes. Dr. Quick has had his lab temporarily shut down and investigated two times so far due to valid complaints of misuse of bats and lack of supervision.
Additionally, Dr. Quick was absent the majority of the first two years in his research laboratory and relied solely on his graduate students for the output of data for the research. Two years ago, Dr. Quick collected 25 more bats from Valentine, Texas. While these bats were in quarantine, one of them succumbed to rabies. As a result, Dr. Quick ordered all of the remaining 24 bats euthanized, even after the CDC recommended the bats instead be spared and held in quarantine for another six months. Dr. Quick also had the option of retiring all 24 bats to Bat World Sanctuary where they would never be in close proximity to the public. Instead, these bats were euthanized with Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in a gas chamber by Texas A&M University's Comparative Medicine
Veterinarian, despite the fact that credible literature states that bats have a high tolerance to CO2 and the use of CO2 to euthanize bats is considered inhumane. One by one each bat was gassed, and then placed in a plastic zip-lock bag and placed into a frigerator to await tissue sample collection to test for rabies. Some of the bats remained alive after being gassed and it was not known until they woke up in agony while being necropsied. After it was discovered that some of the bats were not fully deceased, their necks were broken. Results concluded that ALL 24 of those bats were found to be negative forrabies. This information has to be supplied to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) as part of an annual review of the current status of Christopher Quick's research bats that
still remain in captivity, as well as how many have died or have been euthanized.
TPWD is aware of the number of bats killed, as well as the current complaints, yet they continue to allow Christopher Quick to capture more bats every year. The wild colony in west Texas where these pallid bats roost used to be 10,000 + bats strong. Now, in large part due to Christopher Quick's continual harvesting of the colony over the last five years, there are less than 25 bats. The collection taking place today could very well wipe out the entire colony.
I am sending this information on behalf of several people who have witnessed the mistreatment of the bats in Christopher Quick's care. These individuals wish to remain anonymous but want to come forth to set the record straight and stand up for what is right. These individuals are asking for your support. Please feel free to forward this message to other animal rights groups. I sincerely hope that YOU, along with PETA, IDA, HSUS and other groups will unite and respond to this situation, ending the capture of pallid bats to be used in this research, and force these bats that have worked for so long to finally be retired.
Please do what is in your power to stop this research.
Please help save these animals by writing to the following people to voice your concern:
Christopher M. Quick, Ph.D. (cquick@tamu.edu)
Dr. Quick's boss is Dr. Glen Laine, who is also the department head: glaine@tamu.edu
Comparative Medicine Program, is Betsy Browder: bbrowder@cvm.tamu.edu
Office of Animal Compliance can either be addressed to the Director Dewey Kramer or Olivia Ash:
animalcompliance@vprmail.tamu.edu
If you will be writing them and mailing, use these addresses for both Dr. Laine and Dr. Quick:
Dr. Glen Laine/Dr. Christopher Quick
Texas A&M University
Hwy 60
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology
College Station, TX 77845
Texas A&M University
Comparative Medicine Program
Dr. Betsy Browder
Agronomy Rd.
College Station, TX 77845
Office of Research Compliance
Angelia Raines, Director & Olivia Ash Program Coordinator (Research Involving Animals)
750 Agronomy Rd
General Services Complex, Ste. 3501
1186 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3120
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Photos from the Texas A&M lab of these inhumane experiments on wild pallid bats - this is the "pressure box"
If the description of these experiments or these photos have disturbed you, and you want to help end this senseless torture, please CLICK HERE and sign this petition - just one click can help save lives.
Thank you.