‘No More Monkey Laundering!’ Primate Society’s New Stance Nets PETA Praise

For Immediate Release:
March 30, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

In a historic move, the International Primatological Society (IPS)—one of the biggest primate research and conservation organizations in the world—has taken a firm position on the use of wild-caught monkeys in laboratory experiments, calling the capture and laundering of wild-caught monkeys a “major threat to primate conservation.” “Laundering” in this context refers to capturing monkeys from their natural homes but then passing them off as animals who came from breeding farms.

In a policy statement released on March 22, IPS urges research facilities to end their use of wild-caught primates, noting that the practice of taking monkeys from their natural habitat is decimating vulnerable populations. IPS also recommends that scientific journals do their part by refusing to publish findings gleaned from experiments on monkeys taken from their natural habitat.

“PETA applauds IPS for calling the use of wild monkeys in studies what it is—a catastrophe for animal welfare and a complete violation of scientific integrity,” says PETA Senior Science Advisor Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, who helped develop the IPS statement. “PETA is calling on primate societies around the world to take comparable positions and urging the biomedical community to move away from harmful and archaic monkey experiments.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—notes that between 2008 and 2019, at least 450,000 live long-tailed macaques were trafficked for use in laboratories, with more than 50,000 designated as “wild-caught.”

Because 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective in animal experiments go on to fail or cause harm in human clinical trials, PETA is calling for the use of primates and all other animals in tests to be phased out and for the group’s Research Modernization Deal to be implemented.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.