BATON ROUGE — An animal rights group asked the National Science Foundation on Friday to cancel a $1 million grant to an LSU researcher, saying her work on how sparrows respond to stress does little to promote medical advancements in humans.

The day after WBRZ aired a story showing research by LSU's Christine Lattin, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the NSF should drop the funding for a "wasteful and pointless project." PETA provided footage to WBRZ to air in its story.

PETA says Lattin's experiments don't mimic stressful situations in the real world, such as placing cocktail umbrellas or pipe cleaners in food dishes. It says that the birds’ stress in their capture and confinement are stressful enough and makes Lattin's findings unreliable.

LSU has said it finds value in Lattin's work. Lattin herself has said PETA has targeted her to boost its own fundraising.

PETA won access to videotapes of Lattin's work through an open records lawsuit that reached the state Supreme Court. Rather than hand over material to PETA, however, Lattin ultimately posted videos to her own website. Afterward, she said it was done out of her desire for transparency. The university did not explain why, if transparency was the goal, it fought the open records lawsuit.