Primates
Read, watch and listen to resources about primate experiments from Australia and beyond

Primate Experiment Resources

Discover an extensive selection of resources on primate experimentation.  These resources offer a wealth of information, from an overview of the Australian industry and regulations through to the ethics and a transition to more compassionate science. 

For a brief summary of the issues with primate experimentation, visit our campaign page. 

Industry snapshot

Each year, hundreds of macaques, marmosets, baboons and night monkeys are used in Australian laboratories, where they experience confinement, invasive experiments and eventual death. Despite growing public concern — including more than 100,000 Australians calling for a ban — primate research continues under a system that is entirely self-regulated. Moreover, current guidelines and regulations fail to reflect advances in our understanding of primate cognition and welfare, leaving these highly sentient animals to continue suffering both physically and psychologically. There is also no retirement or rehabilitation available to these animals; they all live and die in the system. 

👉🏼 For a full overview, see AFSA’s latest Primate Briefing, updated August 2026. 

In Australia

In Australia, there are three facilities where primate breeding and outsourcing for experimentation occurs:

Gippsland, VIC

Managed by the Monash Animal Research Platform (Monash University), the National Primate Breeding and Research Facility operates quietly in Churchill, Gippsland. With up to 850 marmosets and macaques for breeding and research, it is the country’s largest primate facility and biggest supplier to researchers. 

The facility operates under great secrecy, yet Freedom of Information Churchill primate testing facility(FOI) documents obtained by AFSA have revealed the true conditions  and what really happens to primates behind closed doors. Among many disturbing practices, the documentation indicates that monkeys may be separated from family members and housed completely alone. Research publications describe highly invasive procedures such as brain surgeries and nervous system experiments.

Beyond the experiments themselves, primates also suffer immensely in captivity. They are confined to cages , subjected to frequent handling and procedures, and exposed to the noise of cleaning, people moving through the facility Primate Housing Unit Gippsland p.590 SOPsand other distressed animals. AFSA argues that these conditions can have significant psychological and physiological consequences, particularly for animals whose natural lives involve extensive movement, complex social relationships and environmental stimulation. The Australian framework does not specify minimum cage sizes for primates, leaving questions about whether existing housing requirements adequately reflect their behavioural and cognitive needs.

There are also concerns about deaths and transparency at the Gippsland facility. AFSA has obtained records documenting unexpected deaths of macaques and marmosets, including deaths associated with illness, aggression, anaesthesia and other unexplained circumstances.

Primates can remain at the facility for many years (with documents showing some aged up to 25 years), being used either for breeding or research. No primates are ever rehomed or find sanctuary — they either die or are killed. The existence of this facility raises serious questions about the future of primate use in research. Sadly, it is a stain on an otherwise beautiful region.

Wallacia, NSW

The Australian National Baboon Colony, located at Wallacia in western Sydney, NSW, is Australia’s only breeding and research facility dedicated to baboons. The colony supplies baboons for medical and scientific research conducted by universities, hospitals and other research institutions. Managed by the Sydney Local Health District, the publicly funded facility is approved to hold up to 165 baboons. Its operations are supported by the NSW Government, while many research projects using baboons receive taxpayer funding through agencies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council. Despite being publicly funded, there is little information about how many baboons are bred, transferred, used in the research or die each year. Annual expenditure on primate experimentation is also not publicly reported.

The Colony operates largely behind closed doors. There is no publicly available annual report dedicated to the colony, routine publication of animal numbers, births or deaths, public reporting of welfare incidents, non-technical summaries of research, and the retirement pathway for selected surviving animals is to remain within the facility and potentially be used for ageing studies. 

Through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, AFSA has obtained documents providing rare insight into the facility. These records reveal serious incidents involving the baboons, including unexpected deaths, traumatic injuries, anaesthetic complications, reproductive research and welfare concerns requiring veterinary intervention.

Our story on mothers and babies in pre-eclampsia research illustrate the true extent of suffering experienced. For example, a mother named ‘S41’ underwent surgery to restrict blood flow to her uterus, causing premature delivery of her infant in a laboratory cage. The infant was found dead and dismembered, with post-mortem records documenting severe trauma.

Details around the death of a young baboon known as ‘Wilfred’ were obtained through FOI and revealed something disturbing about the facility; Wilfred was one of several baboons who suffered from non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a disease that has been proven through decades of veterinary research to be endemic to captive primate cohorts, as was the case in this colony. And yet in spite of this, the facility continues to breed and experiment on these primates while their suffering goes unnoticed for months.

Watch a feature from A Current Affair about the hidden facility. 

Brisbane, QLD

The Australian Defence Force Malaria and Infectious Diseases Institute holds an estimated 31 owl monkeys as of 31 March 2026.  Little information is available. AFSA has sought access under Freedom of Information to the facility’s Standard Operating Procedures. However, this request was denied. As a result, there is little transparency regarding the welfare and day-to-day lives of animals who are confined at the facility.

4 owl monkeys were retired to a Queensland zoo. With no further research currently planned, AFSA is calling for the remaining primates to be retired to a suitable sanctuary where they can live out the rest of their lives in peace.

More on the Australian primate breeding and research facilities:

Regulations and Policies

There is no national legislation in Australia on the use of primates in research. Rather, research using primates must comply with the Code and guidelines provided by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which are adopted into state and territory legislation:

  1. Australian Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes (2013)  
  2. Principles and Guidelines for the Care and Use of Non-Human Primates (2016).

These guidelines state that primates should be used only when no suitable alternative exists and where the expected benefits justify the harms. Yet Australia has no independent national system capable of objectively assessing whether these requirements are being met. The NHMRC does not approve individual primate research projects, inspect facilities or monitor compliance. Instead, oversight rests with institutional Animal Ethics Committees operating within the very organisations conducting the research. The result is a system that is effectively asked to regulate itself, with no independent national body responsible for evaluating the overall scale, quality, outcomes or justification of primate experimentation.

This is not simply a gap in oversight—it is a systemic failure. The current system fails to provide robust assurance that primates are adequately protected from unnecessary suffering, fails to demonstrate that the research delivers the human health benefits used to justify their use, and fails to show that publicly funded primate research provides a meaningful return on public investment. It also fails to provide the transparency needed to determine how many primates are used, what they experience, what research delivers, and whether promised outcomes are achieved. Most fundamentally, it lacks the independence needed for an objective assessment of whether the harms imposed on primates are justified by the benefits claimed. Without independent oversight, meaningful reporting and transparent evaluation, Australia cannot credibly demonstrate that its system of primate research is protecting animals, delivering for human health, or providing value for public money.

The Science: Why Primates are Poor Models for Human Health

It is often argued that primate research is essential to advancing human health because of the close genetic and biological relationship between humans and other primates. Yet systematic reviews of primate research indicate that the perceived benefits to humans are overstated and that primate models have provided disappointing contributions toward human medical advancements. Also, much of the funded research appears to be verifying existing knowledge, rather than generating essential new data.

Separated by 25 million years of evolution, it is the major anatomical, physiological and social differences between us that are ultimately reflected in the findings of primate research, highlighting the limitations of using primates as models for human biology. Also worth noting is that confinement in itself – particularly in a laboratory setting – can impact brain and immune function, as well as cause social and emotional impairment, which further skews research results.

Expert opinions on the scientific case against primate research:

Ethical Issues with Primate Testing

We use primates as research models because they are like us—but therein precisely lies the problem.A photograph of a macaque being tortured in a scientific research facility. Image Credit: We Animals Media

Primates are highly intelligent, deeply social beings who experience complex emotions (such as grief and empathy), form lifelong bonds, problem-solve and demonstrate self-awareness that is strikingly similar to our own. Similarly, their capacity to suffer is no different to ours. 

Subjecting such sentient beings to invasive procedures, confinement and isolation can cause profound psychological and physical suffering. This ethical concern is reflected in the legal protections afforded to great apes, the most similar of primates to humans, which cannot be used in research for this very reason. However, our understanding of primate cognition and sentience has advanced greatly since many of these protections were established more than a decade ago. The evidence increasingly shows that the capacities we recognise in great apes are shared across primate species.

If similarity to humans is the reason we use primates in research, then their capacity to suffer should compel us to question whether they should be used in research at all.

More on the ethical issues with primate testing:

The Global Primate Trade

Around the world, the scientific landscape is shifting away from reliance on animal models and towards research methods designed to study human biology directly. Great apes are already protected from research use in Australia, as well as in a number of other jurisdictions, reflecting their recognised cognitive and social capacities.

More broadly, countries are now taking steps to reduce or phase out the use of non-human primates and redirect research investment towards human-relevant approaches:

  • The UK Government’s roadmap to phase out animal testing includes a specific commitment to reduce pharmacokinetic studies on dogs and primates, and reductions in dog/primates in certain safety studies by 2030  
  • The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has instructed staffers to end all primate research
  • The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance outlining specific product types for which the FDA believes six-month primate toxicity testing can be eliminated or reduced
  • The Dutch government has instructed the Rijswijk primate research centre to increase the share of its annual subsidy spent on animal-free research from 17% to 30% by 2030.

These developments point to an important change in the direction of science: rather than asking how we can make non-human primates better substitutes for humans, researchers and regulators are increasingly investing in methods that study human biology directly. For Australia, the question is whether we will keep pace with this global transition, or continue investing in an approach that other countries are already working to move beyond… 

Coverage on global primate testing:

Inside the labs: Investigations & First-hand Accounts

Sad man talking on the phone. RDNE Stock PexelsBehind the language of ‘scientific progress’ and ‘rigorous processes’ are people who see, handle and care for the animals day-to-day—and some have come forward to describe what they witnessed. Through investigations, Freedom of Information disclosures and first-hand accounts from ex-workers, we are given a rare window into a world that is largely hidden from public view. What actually happens to animals, the conditions they experience, and the human impact of being involved in their use are exposed, with AFSA’s investigations revealing unexpected animal deaths, departures from approved protocols and serious issues with oversight. 

See some of what’s been uncovered:

Retirement, Sanctuary and Rehoming

Australias hidden shame - Tell the Australian government to stop funding primate experimentsFor the few primates that survive the research laboratory, there is no option for retirement or rehabilitation in a designated sanctuary. Despite recommendations in the Code, almost all primates are killed once their use ends. To date, we know of only 4 that have been rehomed at a zoo. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Programs in the US and Europe have shown that primates can successfully transition to sanctuary environments where their needs are met and they can experience freedom. Our vision at AFSA is to create primate retirement pathways in Australia; through funding arrangements between federal and state governments, and collaboration with sanctuaries local and abroad, we can give primates the dignity and freedom they deserve.  

Read more on primate rehoming:

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