Animals in Labs Article from All-Creatures.org

The Concerning Future of Long-tailed Macaques

From Siân Evans, IPPL International Primate Protection League
June 2024

Long-tailed macaques are captured in Cambodia’s forests and even national parks. The capture is reported as stalking wild long-tailed macaques in Cambodia and transferring them to breeding colonies (monkey farms). While the export of captive-born macaques from Cambodia into the US is permitted, it is clear that wild monkeys are being smuggled directly from Cambodia into the US. The cost for each monkey can be as much as $50,000.

Long-tailed Macaque Project/Photo: Neil ChallisPhotography.com

It was at the 1998 International Primatological Society meeting in Madagascar that I recall walking between presentations with Dr. Ardith Eudey, the cofounder of IPPL. She expressed her concern that there was a very real threat to the number of long-tailed macaques in nature. While she didn’t go into details, the thought of using these macaques in biomedical research was at the top of my mind.

Over 25 years later, IPPL was a co-organizer of a side event at CITES (the international organization that regulates the trade in endangered species) in Panama, where long-tailed macaques and their future in the wild were once more being discussed. Ian Redmond and I participated in this side event where alarming information was shared about a catastrophic decrease in the number of these macaques. This time there was no question that the capture of these macaques for biomedical research was the primary concern.

The subject became extremely newsworthy when the Cambodian delegate to CITES was arrested in New York en route to CITES for the trafficking of these primates (see IPPL News, Spring and Holiday issues, 2023). The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now regards long- tailed macaques as endangered. Consequently, CITES is reevaluating their status which would have a large impact on the use of long-tailed macaques in biomedical research. This reevaluation is largely in response to information supplied by the Long Tailed Macaque Project, an IPPL Global Partner.

Recently, the topic of “monkey laundering” has surfaced in the popular media Bloomberg.com (Franklin, 2024). The article by Franklin describes how long-tailed macaques are captured in Cambodia’s forests and even national parks. The capture is reported as stalking wild long-tailed macaques in Cambodia and transferring them to breeding colonies (monkey farms). While the export of captive-born macaques from Cambodia into the US is permitted, it is clear that wild monkeys are being smuggled directly from Cambodia into the US. [Franklin, J. Animal testing for vaccines relies on a cruel monkey supply chain. Bloomberg.com. 4 March 2024]

Macaques, captured from the wild, are sent to breeding farms in Cambodia (most of which are owned by a company registered in Hong Kong) and the suggestion was that wild-caught long-tailed macaques were being comingled with captive-born individuals and exported to the United States. Cambodian officials are accused of creating fake identity papers for the monkeys, listing them as captive- born when they in fact were captured in the wild. The Bloomberg article refers to this as monkey identity theft. The motivation for exporting these alleged shipments was the severe shortage of long-tailed macaques for biomedical research because of a) an increase in demand for vaccine development and b) a ban on the export of long-tailed macaques from China, which until the Pandemic had been an important source of these monkeys. With that ban, the price of a long-tail macaque jumped from $3,000 apiece to over $50,000.

A monkey breeding farm in Cambodia (by Vanny Group in Pursat) Bloomberg.com/video: Anton L. Delgado

The number of macaques involved in the legal and illegal trade is considerable. In 2019, Cambodia exported almost 5,000 monkeys according to the United Nations Comtrade database. A short three years later, the number rose to 38,000 and the value of the Cambodian export business soared from an estimated $34 million to $253 million.

Big Pharma, which uses the monkeys by the thousands to develop vaccines and drugs, is paying a hefty price for each monkey, but such are the vagaries of this industry and so far the companies are absorbing the increased costs. One of the distributors of these shipments of long-tailed macaques in the United States is Worldwide Primates Inc. of Miami founded by a figure well-known to IPPL supporters, Matthew Block.

A monkey with an identity tag. When a captive-bred monkey dies, their tag and history can be illegally transferred to a wild-caught monkey. Source: Cruelty Free International

The upshot of all these supply issues is that biomedical facilities are desperately searching for long-tailed macaques. Ways of resolving this problem include replacing long-tailed macaques with nonanimal models for vaccine development and drug testing (but this is a long way off). Establishing domestic breeding colonies in the US. Expansion of existing breeding colonies is also a possibility and there has been recent activity in the establishment of new monkey breeding facilities, the most notable one in Georgia meant to house 30,000 monkeys. This proposed facility in Georgia is, not surprisingly, being met with stiff local resistance.  

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: June 13, 2024
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