A Day in the Life of a Laboratory Monkey
Originally published by Cambridge University Press for the series, Elements in Bioethics and Neuroethics.
This essay by PAN Works Research Fellow Barbara King is an excerpt from the full volume, The Three Pillars of Ethical Research with Nonhuman Primates (1).
Dr. Barbara J. King is a science writer, biological anthropologist, and public speaker, as well as Emerita Professor of Anthropology at William & Mary. With extensive experience studying animal emotions and cognition across geographies, Barbara’s work focuses on the ethnology and ethics of human-nonhuman animal relationships.
Author’s note:
“Though I’m aware of no monkey named Chip held in a laboratory, this writing is based on work I have done reading whistleblower documents, watching whistleblower videos, and giving legal testimony on behalf of specific individual monkeys held in biomedical facilities.”
Outside the medical laboratory, the day dawns with sunshine and a warm breeze. Monkey #1788 feels neither because his cage sits indoors, in a room with no windows. From his vantage point, the view, the artificial light, and the air remain identical from one day to the next.
The number 1788 comes from the tattoo this monkey had pressed into his flesh on the third day after his birth. That was nine years ago now.
Among the laboratory staff, the monkey is known informally as Chip. Alone in his cage, Chip is able to walk a few paces along the wire mesh floor and peer out at the other monkeys in their own cages. Sometimes, he is occupied for a few moments with his designated “enrichment” toy for that day, a cardboard tube, perhaps, or a bright red popsicle to eat. Mealtimes consist of Monkey Chow delivered through a chute and some fresh vegetables.
Chip is bored; he’s been alone so long in this cage. For the first year of his life, he was kept in a bigger cage with three other young male monkeys. Being able to jump and play with them made him feel good. He drank milk from a bottle because he’d been taken away from his mother, but still, there was movement and life all around him. Now, Chip often slumps against the mesh and endures the passing time in that position, dozing on and off.
Sometimes, the monotony is broken. Two laboratory workers wearing masks and gloves approach Chip’s cage. From many previous experiences over the years, Chip remembers what comes next. His bowels loosen and he snarls and jumps away but there is nowhere to go, and he is injected with anesthesia. As his legs become unsteady and his vision blurs, Chip is removed from the cage and carried on a mobile cart to a chilly room with bright lights overhead. When he wakes up again, he is back in his cage, still unsteady and with a new soreness in his head.
Chip pulls out some of his hair from his torso and legs, as he has done before and will do again.
Chip doesn’t know the human name for his species, Macaca mulatta or rhesus macaque. He doesn’t know that if he had been born in the wild he would have stayed with his mother and grandmother and aunts until, at puberty, he struck out and found a social group of his own where he would make a life among female mates and male allies and rivals. He doesn’t know that there are tens of thousands of other monkeys, of his and other species, held in experimental laboratories all across the United States. He does know, as the day ends, that it’s dark and he’s alone.
Citation:
1. Johnson, L.S.M., Fenton, A., & Jensvold, M.L. (2025). The Three Pillars of Ethical Research with Nonhuman Primates: A Work Developed in Collaboration with the National Anti-Vivisection Society. Cambridge University Press.
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