Why do they continue to do this?

Another article I came across in the past few days concerned PETA’s attempts to get Washington University in St. Louis to stop using cats in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) intubation training. Apparently, they’ve been calling for an end to the practice there for a few years already, and recently Bob Barker offered to give the university $75,000 for the purchase of simulation mannequins.

WUSTL doesn’t seem to want to take Barker’s offer and switch to the use of mannequins, and I can’t understand why. Other training facilities use the mannequins (I haven’t been able to determine whether most or all others do), and the American Heart Association responded to a question from PETA by saying: “We do not endorse or require the use of animals during the AHA-PALS training because of advances and availability of simulation mannequins.”

This would seem to settle it. Other programs use mannequins, the AHA supports the use of mannequins, someone’s offering to pay for the mannequins – why would they continue to use cats? I don’t get it. Is there something I’m missing here?