Investigation of ONPRC Reveals Horrifying Abuse of Monkeys Used in Useless Experiments

The Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) keeps more than 4,000 monkeys and uses them in cruel studies. In 2007, this facility received more than $33 million in taxpayer money, much of which is spent on needless studies of illnesses that have already been well researched using clinical data from humans.

During a four-month undercover investigation inside the facility, PETA documented that monkeys were driven insane by laboratory conditions. The investigation revealed that the monkeys were confined to small, barren cages and lived in constant fear of employees' rough handling. Among the examples of cruelty that PETA investigators observed at ONPRC were the following:

• Sick monkeys received inadequate veterinary care and pain relief.
• Employees chased terrified monkeys in their enclosures and pinned the monkeys' arms behind their backs to force them into transfer boxes.
• Employees used high-pressure hoses to spray water into cages while monkeys were still in them.
• Monkeys were forced to pick their food out of waste trays beneath their cages.
• Monkeys who were confined to small steel cages showed signs of psychological disturbance, such as frantic pacing, spinning, and rocking.

In September 2008, PETA also obtained new internal documents from ONPRC that further detail abuse and neglect in addition to that observed during our undercover investigation. These documents reveal the following abuses:

• ONPRC experimenters accidentally performed surgery on the wrong monkey.
• A pregnant monkey experienced a difficult labor, but the experimenter refused to allow the attending veterinarian to perform a C-section to save the baby. When the experimenter finally allowed a C-section to be performed two days later, the full-term baby was dead; the mother died only days later of multiple organ failure.
• Many caged monkeys at ONPRC exhibit stress-induced neurotic behaviors such as cage-circling, self-biting and hair-pulling. In one case, a monkey is described as having pulled out 90 percent of his own hair.
• Despite concerns raised by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors and a hired consultant, ONPRC continues to perform a painful procedure called electroejaculation on male monkeys. One monkey, Billy the Kid, was forced to endure this procedure at least 48 times.

Please watch the video to learn more about the cruelty at ONPRC.

Experimenters at ONPRC separate infant monkeys from their mothers in order to cause them intentional psychological damage. They impregnate monkeys and expose them to dangerous levels of nicotine in order to induce birth defects in their babies. They starve monkeys so that they'll "voluntarily" consume alcohol, and then they kill them to see the effects of alcohol on organ function. You can read more about these cruel experiments here.

Many of ONPRC's studies have no clinical application to human beings, and many duplicate old research that has been conducted and funded repeatedly in the past. In 2002, Good Morning America hosted a three-part series titled "You Paid for It!" The series used ONPRC animal experimenter Judy Cameron's work, which involved causing terror to infant monkeys, as an example of wasteful taxpayer-funded projects.

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