A Nevada research lab is being eyed by Animal-Welfare activists after 30 monkeys were essentially cooked alive in the lab. The monkeys were incinerated in the room when someone in the lab left the heater on. Two monkeys had to be euthanized due to their injuries.

This is a second similar incidence, when a monkey died in 2009, after it was sent through a washer while still being in its cage, due to excruciatingly high temperatures, in a lab run by the same company.

Critics are of the opinion that fines charged for animal violations at research labs are so scanty that violations are not curbed at all. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the lab where the monkeys died in Nevada was fined only $14,000 for both incidents.

According to Agriculture Department records, one of the biggest violators of negligent animal deaths at research centers was Charles River Laboratories, where a total of 33 monkeys died at facilities in Reno and Sparks in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Michael Budkie, Executive Director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, says, “The penalties have given them virtually no motivation whatsoever to cease violating the law”.

“If they are literally killing animals through negligence, something is wrong with the system”, says Mr. Budkie.