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WITNESS ACCOUNT: |
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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 cruel experiments and housing once they
are captured and placed into captivity. The
following information outlines the years of cruelty
that I personally witnessed.
CLICK HERE TO READ MY SWORN AFFIDAVIT |
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Dr. Christopher Quick,
a biomedical engineer, heads this research currently
taking place at Texas A&M University, where he has
been allowed to perform experiments on pallid bats
for several years. He captures bats from a roosting
site which the bats have been safely using for over
20 years. 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. Consequently, over 40 female pallid bats
were not allowed to give birth to one pup a year for
over four years, resulting in the loss of 160 bats
within a four year time span. Many of these pups
would have also reproduced during this time. |
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Excluding a few bats that died as a
direct result of stress, these
experiments are not entirely terminal.
As a result, the 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.
One of the worst aspects of this
research involves a rectal probe. The
rectal probe causes bleeding and tearing
of the rectum and causes such high
levels of stress that the bats often
self mutilate by chewing on its own arm
or rectum in order to try and free
itself. I witnessed bats urinating
blood after this procedure, as well as
rapid breathing and gnashing of teeth.
The rectal probe is very rigid and made
out of steel. While it is inserted using
lidocaine, a short-term numbing agent,
the bat is oftentimes in the box, laying
in its back with the rectal probe
inserted, for more than 30 |
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A pallid
undergoing an
experiment under
Dr. Quick's
care. The bat is
on its back,
restrained in a
Plexiglas box.
The bat's wing
is unnaturally
stretched out
and then held in
place with
weighted cotton
swabs. The hot
lens of the
microscope is
aimed at the
delicate wing
tissue for hours
at a time,
oftentimes
causing burns.
(Photo
credit: http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/cquick/BatLab/) |
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minutes at a time. It
is not uncommon for a bat to cry out during the
entire procedure. The bat is placed into the box
restrained, with the rectal probe inserted, then its
body is heated to see how high the bats body
temperature would rise. Recordings are taken to see
how long it took the bat's body temperature to go
back down to baseline temperature. With the
exception of Dr. Quick, everyone, including the grad
students, hates this experiment. When I was with
Dr. Quick in the room, he would make the bat stay
in the experiment box even after the experiment was
over just to play around with the microscope. He
would look at the bats wing under the
microscope, and I would tell him that the rectal
probe cord was not long enough for him to be moving
the bat around. A few times he moved the bat so much
that he caused tension on the probe, causing the bat
to cry out in agony. It was not until I stepped in
and said enough was enough that he would grudgingly
stop. |
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 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 actually on the outside of
the experiment box, and the bat itself is restrained
in hard plastic. 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 through the skin and muscle |
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of their arms and
actually 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 pressure box (photo
right). 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 up-side down 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 taking part in
this 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. |
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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.
While I was there, their only form of enrichment was
being fed crickets, which they were allowed to hunt
for on the ground of their enclosure, but that was
stopped when facility managers received complaints
about escaping crickets. To date, 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. |
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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.
Additionally, there is compelling evidence that this
research does not contribute in any way to science.
Personally I only know of three papers that have
been published, and two of them are by a PhD
student. More importantly, almost every document
from this research was done using computer models or
lymphatic vessels in a bath, and not bats!
In fact, there are about 12 publications, all done
with mathematical models and not bats, on
Dr. Quick's faculty page.
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, based on the opinion of
Vincent
Gresham, A&Ms
Clinical Veterinarian, these bats were
euthanized with Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in a gas
chamber, despite the fact that
he had knowledge of credible literature stating bats have a high
tolerance to CO2, and the use of CO2 to euthanize
bats is considered inhumane. Dr Gresham gassed each
bat, one by one. It took an average of one to three minutes
for each bat to die; its body contorting in agony
the entire time as it slowly suffocated to death.
Each bat was then placed in a plastic zip-lock bag
and placed into a refrigerator to await tissue
sample collection to test for rabies. However,
because of their high tolerance to CO2, some of
these bats remained alive after being gassed and it
was not known they were conscious until they woke up
in agony while sliced open during necropsy. When it
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 for rabies. |
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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 3,000 + 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. |
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Please help us take
action against Texas A&M and Dr. Quick. This
research must be stopped and the bats must be
allowed to return to their home in the wild. Please
e-mail the individuals below and urge them to end
this unnecessary research and retire every bat in
their possession to
South Plains Wildlife Rehab, where it will
be rehabilitated and allowed to return to its
rightful place in the wild.
Please also sign this petition and forward
this web page to as many individuals and animal
rights groups as possible. |
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Christopher M. Quick:
cquick@tamu.edu
&
cquick@cvm.tamu.edu |
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Dr. Vincent
Gresham,
Clinical Veterinarian
vgresham@vprmail.tamu.edu |
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Dr. Glen Laine,
Department Head over Dr. Quick:
glaine@tamu.edu |
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Dr. Glen Laine/Dr.
Christopher Quick
Texas A&M University
Hwy 60
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology
College Station, TX 77845 |
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Betsy Browder,
Comparative Medicine Program:
bbrowder@cvm.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University
Comparative Medicine Program
Dr. Betsy Browder
Agronomy Rd.
College Station, TX 77845 |
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Director Dewey
Kramer, Office of Animal Compliance:
animalcompliance@vprmail.tamu.edu
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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Olivia Ash, Office
of Animal Compliance:
animalcompliance@vprmail.tamu.edu
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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Dr. Eleanor M.
Green, Dean:
emgreen@tamu.edu
Texas A&M University
Dr. Eleanor M. Green, Dean
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical
Sciences
750 Agronomy Rd.
College Station, TX 77845 |
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