Monkeys destined for cruel laboratories need your help.

Wild monkeys in Indonesia – trapped, beaten, their babies stolen – they are the victims of the global animal testing trade.

Shocking footage released by Action for Primates has exposed the cruelty and suffering inflicted on Indonesia’s wild monkeys, captured and exported to overseas laboratories. The brutal and inhumane treatment is in clear breach of international welfare guidelines.

The harrowing video shows babies violently torn from the arms of their distraught mothers and thrown into sacks. Terrified young monkeys struggling in nets are forcibly dragged by their tails and shoved into crates, where they huddle together, crying out for help. A large adult male brutally beaten with sticks, dazed and confused, is held down and his throat cut.

“This distressing footage is shocking proof of the brutality and inhumanity to which these sentient animals are subjected,” Action for Primates co-founder, Sarah Kite, said in a statement.

Despite global concern and condemnation of the inherent cruelty of this international primate trade, in 2021, the Indonesian government alarmingly reversed its position on a ban on wild capture, allowing it to resume. Hundreds of wild-tailed macaques have since been trapped, torn from their home, family, and social groups.

Indonesian authorities claim the trapping is due to clashes between the monkeys and the community- one consequence of  ever-increasing habitat destruction. Rather than allowing macaques to be trapped and exported for research or killed, alongside Action for Primates, we are urging Indonesian authorities to address deforestation and other issues bringing these animals close to humans,  and instead protect local wildlife.

And with the the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently upgrading the long-tailed macaque from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘endangered’ for the first time, driven in part by the shocking numbers traded for research and toxicity testing, the stakes have never been more dire and the need for governments to act to protect these monkeys more urgent.  

A global trade in misery

Tens of thousands of primates are used across the globe each year in testing and research, including here in Australia. Tragically, the long-tailed macaque is the most heavily traded and abused of all primate species. Many are exported from large breeding facilities directly to laboratories. Others, like those in Indonesia, are trapped and taken from the wild. Removal from their family causes suffering and extreme distress – for those taken and those left behind.

And as for all animals transported long distances, conditions are often gruelling. The monkeys are crammed into tiny transit crates, forced to endure long and stressful journeys, destined for a life of suffering far from home.

Monkeys exported from Indonesia are mainly sent to laboratories in the USA and China for ‘toxicity testing’. The animals are deliberately and heinously poisoned to study the effects of drugs and chemicals even though animal testing is often found to be pointless. Primates, even though very similar to us, also have significant genetic differences that often means results can’t accurately predict human responses.