For 13 years until 2014, a cat had been within the confines of University Wisconsin-Madison 2009 laboratory. The cat by the name Broc, had a sole duty of helping the researchers in the laboratory led by professor Tom Yin collect data on how human beings perceive and process sound. The campus laboratory room was dimly lit and the cat had no access to light and the room too had a sound proof from inside. A sound then would go off in the speakers that are available within the lab and the cat had to respond on whether the sound is from the left, right or is straight ahead in the room. A correct reaction was rewarded while a wrong one means that the cat has to start all over again ( FBRadmin 2019) . Interestingly there were so many other cats in the laboratories in University of Wisconsin and later it emerged that there were ethical issues that made critics force the experiments to stop although the university cited lack of funding and the retirement of the lead investigator.
Some of the ethical issues that the animal rights organizations raised were those bordering on the health of the animals such as lack of feeding the animals. The cats in the laboratory would undergo starvation for six days according to reports and this even saw some of them dying. The cats would also have their ears cut off just to experiment on the effects of the ear on processing sound. Some cats had their skulls drilled into causing death in the process while some nursed serious injuries. There were also issues on the health of the cats many got infected in the laboratory even as the place was considered unhygienic by the NIH's Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare ( Schneider 2015) .
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Professor Yin and his colleagues would have made the research work at the university ethical by making the laboratory hygienic, avoiding the injuries to the cats, ensuring that no metals or any insertions are made on the bodies of the cats. The laboratory would have also ensured that they do not starve the animals and work with the animals rights organizations on the emerging issues as the National Institute of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare.
References
FBRadmin. (2019, December 3). University of Wisconsin, cats and protesters- who's right? - FBR. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from https://fbresearch.org/university-of-wisconsin-cats-and-protesters-whos-right/
Schneider, P. (2015, January 23). UW-Madison has ended controversial cat experiments targeted by PETA. Retrieved April 27, 2020, from https://madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/pat_schneider/uw-madison-has-ended-controversial-cat-experiments-targeted-by-peta/article_59d8a569-abeb-51be
