Losing the scent

Animal-rights activist Rick Bogle traveled 3000 miles to lead a protest in Massachusetts. But he's not sure if he's spreading a gospel -- or if his cause has lost its way.

by Jason Gay

THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY/ New England Regional Primate Research Center is nestled in the woods off a two-lane country road in Southborough. The primate center's entrance is a paved uphill driveway. From the main road, you can't see any buildings, and there's nothing to tell you what really happens here -- just a wooden sign reading HARVARD UNIVERSITY: SOUTHBOROUGH CAMPUS. It looks like the entrance to a country club, or a prep school.

But the center is actually home to some 1500 monkeys and other primates that are used in scientific experiments. And that has attracted the attention of animal-rights activists. Some 60 protesters have descended upon Southborough on this day, the first Sunday in August. There are middle-aged women holding poster-size photographs of monkeys with metal caps drilled into their skulls. There is a small man wearing a T-shirt that reads SCIENCE GONE MAD, with fake blood stains and electrodes hanging out. Behind him, there are bucketloads of teenagers barking, "What is the solution? Vegan revolution!" Resting on a string of barricade fencing is a brigade of weary-looking cops.

The star of this protest is Rick Bogle, a 44-year-old junior-high-school teacher from Prairie City, Oregon, who drove 3000 miles to pitch a tent outside the research center's entrance and helm this protest, which lasts through August 10. A tall, soft-spoken man with a full brown beard and loose, athletic limbs, Bogle is on a seven-state camping tour of these centers, spreading his message that animal research is cruel, immoral, unnecessary, and a waste of tax dollars. But he confides that the Southborough crowd is a bit thinner than he expected, the press hasn't shown up in large numbers, and, overall, he's not sure if his animal-rights message is getting across.

"Usually, when I leave these places," he says, looking toward the entrance, "nothing has changed. And that's a real bitter pill."

Bogle isn't alone in his frustration. After years of booming hype and growing momentum, animal-rights activism has gone into a funk. National enthusiasm for the cause, Bogle says, is "almost nil." Though activists can point to recent successes -- the continued surge of animal-test-free products, the decline of fur sales, and measures such as last November's referendum banning certain types of traps in Massachusetts -- it's clear that, right now, the movement needs some gentle prodding.

That's quite a change from just a few years ago, when you could hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing an article about animal rights. Thanks largely to the aggressive, celebrity-rich work of watchdog groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), animal activism became a hip cause, with spokespeople ranging from aging French sex symbol Brigitte Bardot to "Natural Born Killer" Woody Harrelson. Socially conscious corporations such as Benetton and the Body Shop not only ended animal testing in their cosmetic lines but boldly advertised their animal-friendly policies. Culture magnets such as MTV embraced the issue. Animal activism was no longer the domain of passionate true-believers. Animal activism was for everyone. It was now, it was in.

But today, there is general agreement among animal activists that their movement is stagnating. The protesters' passion is still there, but the media are indifferent, government leaders are aloof, and cause-shopping celebrities have moved on to more-trendy issues, such as Tibet. In one notable indiscretion, former PETA spokesmodel Naomi Campbell was recently spotted wearing a fur coat. The glitz is gone, and the animal-rights battle has returned to its less sexy, grassroots ranks -- to people such as Rick Bogle and the Southborough protesters.

There are no celebrities here, but there is plenty of passion. Bogle's nine-day vigil is aimed at shining a light on the Harvard/ New England research center's programs, which use primates to study drug addiction and experimental surgeries -- programs activists call both immoral and impractical. But, more significant, it's an opportunity for activists to showcase an idea that's creating a new buzz in the movement: the Great Ape Project. On this day, Bogle and others talk excitedly about the project and pass out literature explaining its objectives.

The project, supported by a loose collection of animal-rights activists and scientists, seeks to give non-human primates the same rights as their human counterparts, including the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture. The way to achieve this equal status -- and, thus, to attack experimentation -- is for the activist community to study, define, and publicize the biological and behavioral similarities between apes and people. Already, there are numerous links: in DNA structure, in the ability to express emotions such as grief and joy, and in the ability of both groups to communicate using sign language.

"There is no morally relevant difference between humans, great apes and monkeys," Brighton animal activist Christine A. Dorchak wrote in a recent article on the ape project. "Based on their intelligence, complex emotional lives, and self-awareness, chimps, gorillas, baboons, orangutans, and monkeys deserve legal rights."

Obviously, Dorchak, Bogle, and their fellow activists aren't lobbying to give non-human primates every legal right granted to humans (monkey marriages?), but the point of their mission is clear: if monkeys and apes are accepted as our equals, it will be morally indefensible for us to capture and experiment upon them. And once non-human primates are granted human rights, you can use a slippery-slope argument to push for the same status for the rest of the creatures in the animal kingdom.

It's a bold idea. And though the Great Ape Project lacks the sensational appeal of anti-fur crusades and laboratory raids, the Southborough activists believe the project may be the best new hope for revitalizing the animal-rights campaign.

"The best thing the movement could ever do is to make animal rights an extension of human rights," Steven Baer, a coordinator of the Southborough protest, says later. "That, in turn, would make animal rights an extension of things like racial rights and sexuality rights."

Until the project gains public acceptance, however, the animal-rights fight continues across the country through small actions such as Bogle's primate-center protests. And the effectiveness of such actions is open to dispute. Though a handful of protesters, including Baer, are arrested this weekend, the Southborough event generates little attention.

Bogle, who grew up during the civil-rights and antiwar movements, and remembers watching both struggles on the nightly news, doesn't know if animal-rights activism can ever achieve the same attention. After all, he says, animal activism isn't about achieving human rights -- it's about giving a voice to creatures unable to speak on their own. "This is so other-focused," Bogle says. "Succeed or fail, you and I can go home, and our day-to-day lives won't be any different."

Likewise, selling the Great Ape Project's message to the public will be challenging, he adds. People can understand why a mink coat is bad, but persuading them to accept chimpanzees as moral equals is a tougher sell.

Predictably, the frustrations in the animal-rights movement have resulted in occasional splits between older, ensconced activists pushing for gradual, pragmatic reform and young bucks who believe the slow approach isn't working and who want to provoke a confrontation. One of the younger activists in Southborough is Dan Dupre, a clean-cut, articulate 20-year-old from Wallingford, Connecticut. To say Dupre is a radical animal-rights activist is to put it mildly. "I would kill myself to liberate every animal on this planet," he says. "I am willing to die for this cause."

Moments later, he looks up and sees a small trail of cars snaking down the primate center's driveway, accompanied by a police escort. He politely excuses himself, and then, surrounded by a throng of protesters, he shakes his fist and screams at the drivers passing by. "You murderous scum!" he yells.

Amid the noise and shouting, Rick Bogle is standing across the street, arms folded, in front of his tent. He has to be in Southborough for seven more days, and he's not about shake his fist like Dan Dupre or lie down in front of a police car to prove his point. The animal-rights movement has to regain momentum and grab back the public's attention, and Rick Bogle is trying to do his part, camp site by camp site.

"Somehow," he says later, "we have to keep on hammering at the issue."

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.