PETA petitions again to keep macaques out of US research labs

By Michael Doyle | 01/28/2025 01:53 PM EST

The Fish and Wildlife Service last October rejected a petition to provide federal protections for the monkeys.

A long-tailed macaque eats a biscuit.

A long-tailed macaque eats a biscuit on World Wildlife Day in Indonesia on March 3, 2023. Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP via Getty Images

Animals rights advocates are trying again to secure federal protections for two species of monkeys widely used for testing purposes in U.S. laboratories.

In a pair of Endangered Species Act petitions filed Monday, PETA and its allies asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the long-tailed macaque and the southern pig-tailed macaque as threatened or endangered.

“Endangered Species Act protections are meant to prevent the extinction of species, not be withheld to prop up profits for the experimentation industry,” PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel said in a statement.

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PETA filed a similar petition in April of 2023, which the FWS rejected last October.

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