The Region - News from Jan. 13, 1986

The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission unanimously rejected a request by University of Southern California medical researchers to lease a portion of the Los Angeles Zoo to house as many as 100 rhesus and stump-tail monkeys used in the study of histoplasmosis, a disease that can cause blindness in humans. Supporters of the proposal, including some animal rights groups, said the monkeys should be placed in a natural zoo habitat during the experiment’s one- to two-year observation period rather than be kept in cages on the USC campus. But commissioners said the plan would create too much controversy among animal rights groups opposed to vivisection and conflict with the zoo’s purpose of exhibiting endangered animals for public viewing.