According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, 107,747 nonhuman primates were used in research, testing, teaching, or experimentation in the United States in 2023. Of these, 41,987 primates were bred, conditioned, or held for use in teaching, testing, experiments, research or surgery, but not yet used for such purposes. There has, however, been an effort by some in the scientific community to suggest there is a primate shortage and push for expansion of their breeding. Nonhuman primates accounted for 12.8% of Animal Welfare Act-covered animals held or used for research in 2023.
Many species of nonhuman primates are used in biomedical and behavioral research, including cynomolgus macaques, rhesus macaques, pigtailed macaques, African green monkeys, squirrel monkeys, baboons and capuchins.
Nonhuman primates are used for a diverse range of research including pharmaceutical research and development; neuroscience, neurology or neuromuscular disease research; vaccine development or testing; pharmaceutical preclinical safety research; and immunology or autoimmune disease research.
Nonhuman primates are also involved in research of infectious diseases, biodefense or biological warfare, cancer, cognition, behavior or psychological diseases, maternal deprivation studies, organ or tissue transplantation, aging or degenerative diseases, HIV/AIDS, surgical technique development, reproduction or reproductive diseases, biomechanics/biomedical device development, and imaging studies.
Chimpanzees
Invasive research on our closest relative, the chimpanzee, has finally come to an end. Chimpanzees were historically used in diverse research areas including studies pertaining to hepatitis, monoclonal antibodies, infectious diseases, comparative genomics, neuroscience and behavioral research. A review of the use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research in the U.S. conducted in 2011 by the Institutes of Medicine, determined that the scientific necessity of chimpanzee research was very limited. The National Institutes of Health responded with an announcement in 2013 that the vast majority of NIH-owned or supported chimpanzees would be retired to appropriate sanctuaries, and maintained a colony of 50 chimpanzees for future research. It was announced in 2015 that all NIH-owned chimpanzees were eligible for retirement.
It has been a long road in getting the chimpanzees to Chimp Haven, the world’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary. After moving over 200 chimpanzees to the sanctuary, in 2019, the NIH indicated that 44 chimpanzees would not move to sanctuary because they were too old and frail. In 2022, a federal judge ruled that the NIH had broken the law by failing to transfer its remaining chimpanzees to a sanctuary. Some of those chimpanzees have begun moving to Chimp Haven this year, though Chimp Haven has had to expand its facility to account for these new animals. The NAVS Sanctuary fund has helped support this effort.
