01:48 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 20, 2005

WWLTV.com

BATON ROUGE -- Animal rights group PETA has written to state Attorney General Charles Foti asking that LSU officials be charged with cruelty for abandoning 8,000 animals in the university’s labs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a spokesperson for the group.

State law defines cruelty for abandoning as "completely forsaking and deserting an animal previously under the custody or possession of a person without making reasonable arrangements for its proper care, sustenance, and shelter."

PETA alleges Larry Hollier, the dean of LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, and Joseph Morschbaecher, the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center, admitted that they euthanized only a small number of animals before staff fled from the buildings, leaving the rest of the animals to face death while they were trapped in their cages.

PETA said it fired off a second letter to the USDA, asking the agency to charge LSU with failure to abide by the minimal requirements as set forth under the federal Animal Welfare Act. PETA said it first wrote to the USDA two days after the levees broke to ask that emergency teams in the affected areas ensure that animals were not dying in laboratories.

According to PETA, additional letters were sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, asking that LSU not be given federal funds to rebuild animal laboratories in high-risk areas, and to LSU Chancellor Sean O'Keefe, asking for the dismissal of both Hollier and Morschbaecher.

"We're not going to rest until LSU is punished for leaving these terrified animals in cages as the waters rose," said Mary Beth Sweetland, director of PETA's Research and Investigations department. "It's clear that LSU's attitude was 'they're just animals,' as the only lamenting we've heard is over lost research data."

PETA attorneys said they will file a more detailed formal criminal complaint within the next ten days. PETA's letters in behalf of the 8,000 animals that died at LSU are available upon request.

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For more information, visit PETA.org.