Harry Potter star sues over animal testing on owls

Actress Evanna Lynch, known among other things from Harry Potter, is joining a groundbreaking lawsuit by PETA USA against a US federal law.

This law allows Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to conduct lethal brain experiments on owls. Together with a senior JHU staff member and a former Maryland health secretary, they are suing as so-called “next friends” of the birds. In the taxpayer-funded experiments, the birds are cut open and killed. The birds are not protected by the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) because of a loophole devised in 2002 by Senator Jesse Helms, an opponent of civil rights and animal welfare.

PETA's lawsuit is directed against two officials of the US Department of Agriculture who are responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act. It aims to abolish the Helms rider. The lawsuit points out that the American constitution prohibits singling out individuals or groups for a penalty imposed by Congress – such as the death sentences imposed by Senator Helms's rider.

„Experimenters cut open barn owls' skulls, implant electrodes into their brains, restrain them, put headphones on them and force them to listen to sounds in order to record their brain activity”, said Lynch beforehand in a letter to JHU, in which she called for an end to the experiments. “Finally, they are killed so that their brains can be removed and examined. There can be no ethical justification for such grotesque animal cruelty.”

In addition, the owls are restrained in restraint devices for up to 12 hours, their eyes clamped open and bombarded with sounds and lights – just like in the science-fiction horror film A Clockwork Orange . Only for the victims is the torture real.

Should the lawsuit brought by PETA USA and Lynch be successful, countless millions of mice, birds and other animals unfairly excluded until now — animals suffering in test laboratories across the country — would be better protected.