How Many Primates are in Laboratories?

The most basic answer to this question is that we simply don’t know. During 2006 the USDA, in the annual Animal Welfare Enforcement Report, stated that 62,315 non-human primates were used in experimentation. However, this is not the whole picture. The USDA reports only animals that are actually used in experimentation during a given year. It is often assumed that this number is the actual total population of animals in a specific laboratory. However, the numbers reported by the USDA do not include animals kept for breeding, conditioning, or later use. Regarding non-human primate use this discrepancy is significant. In fact, for many laboratories, more primates are kept for breeding or conditioning than are used in actual experimentation.

(For details of the statistics in the following discussion please see Appendix A.)

This incomplete reporting leads to substantial misunderstanding of the overall situation regarding non-human primate use. To illustrate this issue, USDA statistics for 10 of the largest states for use of non-human primates (Alabama, California, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Washington) are compared to the actual total population of the largest primate laboratories in these states. For these 10 states, the USDA reported 21,051 primates used in experimentation. The actual total primate population of major labs in these 10 states during 2006 was a whopping 49,458. This is a discrepancy of 28,407 primates or 135%. Clearly, a substantial number of primes that are confined in laboratories do not figure into the USDA’s calculations thereby providing a very misleading picture of primate experimentation.

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