Primates Fight Back to Protest Abuse

In the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston portrayed an astronaut who finds himself in an unfamiliar world ruled by apes. Captured, caged, and beaten, he is subjected to a litany of insults but is unable to speak up for himself because of a throat injury. Heston’s captors prepare to use him for experimental brain surgery, dismissing the notion that humans might possess any intelligence, capacity for suffering, or innate right to freedom.

While it is beyond question that nonhuman primates possess intelligence, experience pain, and have the capacity to suffer psychologically, proponents of primate experimentation still claim that these animals are incapable of communicating and, therefore, don’t have any rights whatsoever. However, some nonhuman primates have learned sign language—from humans or from their own mothers—and are able to express themselves in a language that we can understand. And, all primates will stand up for themselves and their companions, will express their likes and dislikes, and will fight back to protest abuse. Consider the following:

• According to a BBC Uganda report, a group of baboons in eastern Uganda staged a public “sit-in” after a speeding truck killed a female member of their troop. The grieving baboons surrounded her body in the middle of the road and refused to move for 30 minutes, blocking the highway completely. Even when passersby tried to tempt them away with food, the baboons refused to leave their deceased family member. The previous year, another group of baboons threw sticks and stones at passing cars after a baby baboon from their troop was killed on the same road.

• Reports from a drought-stricken village in Kenya indicate that a troop of very thirsty monkeys fought with humans to obtain access to water. When the villagers returned to the scene, armed with axes and knives, the monkeys stood their ground and fought back but were eventually forced to retreat after eight of the monkeys were killed.

• When 300-pound gorilla Koko had a toothache, she asked for a dentist. Koko is famous for mastering more than 1,000 American Sign Language signs. She made the sign for pain and pointed to her mouth. Dentists and veterinarians were then dispatched to extract a tooth.

• In 2003, two dozen monkeys escaped from the Tulane Regional Primate Research Center—where some monkeys were intentionally given leprosy, some were used in painful sight experiments, and others were sickened with infectious diseases—and fled into the adjacent forest. The same year, a female rhesus macaque monkey escaped from the University of California-Davis lab where she was being used for breeding purposes, and two rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from the Biomedical Primate Research Center in the Netherlands. In 2004, a group of monkeys escaped from their cages at an experimentation facility in New Iberia, Louisiana, and one monkey even escaped from the facility’s grounds.

• While a few lucky primates in laboratories are successful in their attempts to escape the confinement and torture, most primates—if they aren’t debilitated by disease or depression—desperately seek avenues of escape. At Covance Laboratories, monkeys bolted from cages that were accidentally left unlocked or from procedure tables when opportunities presented themselves. Sadly, angry workers reacted to these valiant efforts by violently banging cages full of monkeys into the walls and harshly threatening the animals with abusive remarks and aggressive gestures, terrifying not only the escaped monkeys but also all the other animals who were trapped in cages in the room.

• Primates protest when they are subjected to ridiculous and unnecessary experiments. For example, in one experiment, a monkey was given a cucumber slice in exchange for a pebble while a monkey in an adjoining cage was given a grape in exchange for the same pebble. The unfairness of the exchange is clear when one considers that monkeys greatly prefer grapes to cucumbers. Rather than passively accepting the less desirable food, the monkey who was given the cucumber slice protested the exchanges vigorously, throwing the cucumber slice out of her cage.

• In laboratories, mother monkeys fight, scratch, struggle, and scream bloody murder when their babies are stolen from them.

• When laboratory workers open cage doors to retrieve monkeys—generally to perform procedures that cause pain and distress—the terrified monkeys mount futile efforts to be left alone by clinging tightly to the bars at the back of the cage and screaming loudly.

• At Covance Laboratories, where a PETA undercover investigator worked for 11 months, thick gavage tubes were forced up monkeys’ nostrils and down their throats in order to pump doses of deadly compounds into their stomachs. After being dosed once or twice, the monkeys began to clamp their mouths shut, refusing to allow the technicians to poison them. PETA’s investigator then documented the technicians’ behavior as they violently choked, punched, and shook the animals. When this was done in close proximity to the monkeys’ cages, the caged monkeys stuck their tiny arms out to grab the technicians’ sleeves, attempting to stop the violence.

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