Report of monkey's death prompts call for prosecution

The Humane Society of the United States has called upon Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Janice Ellis to aggressively pursue an animal-cruelty case involving a laboratory monkey that, according to a KIRO-TV investigation, was boiled alive at an Everett lab last November.

As of today, however, Ellis' office had not received any referral about the case from a law-enforcement agency.

KIRO reported that the female macaque was killed when a cleaning crew at SNBL USA put the wire-caged monkey through a steaming rack washer.

SNBL submitted a response to KIRO's report, confirming that a monkey used in its research died "in an unfortunate accident" in November, adding that it was the first accidental death of a monkey in its care since the lab opened in Everett more than eight years ago.

SNBL, which is Japanese-owned, provides preclinical services for the development of pharmaceutical drugs and specializes in primate and small-animal research, according to its Web site.