For the closing down of a colony of baboons at the University of Murcia

Edit from 19 January 2023

European regulations indicate a minimum of four to seven square metres of ground for two baboons, but a minimum of three to six cubic metres in volume for an individual in a zoo. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain compliance with this regulation on the basis of the videos provided.

On 12 October, a baboon escaped from the cage in which it was being kept by the university. After having crossed the motorway and travelled from roof to roof, he was recaptured, hit with a tranquilliser dart, then taken back to the cage.

In response to this ‘incident’, One Voice is naturally working with the Spanish association Stop Camarles (with whom we are already partners for many projects involving primates destined for laboratories) and fifteen other associations worldwide to ask the ethical committee at this university and Spanish ministries to get this colony of baboons closed and to supervise the transfer of the animals to a sanctuary who could meet their needs without subjecting them to gruesome experiments.

The university will not even respect the regulations…

Yesterday morning, Stop Camarles revealed new images and videos, which show the dog kennels and monkey cages.

The one that escaped in October could, for the first time, feel the grass under his feet and climb real trees. Forcibly returned to the cage, he will have to, like dozens of other members of the colony, be content with a hanging tyre and a few platforms fixed onto the wire mesh.

The overcrowding is blatant. The cages are meant to provide between three and six square metres of ground space for each individual depending on their age. An already minimal regulation which cannot even be met here. [Edit from 19 January 2023] Not to mention that keeping such different species such as baboons and beagles in such close proximity could potentially create stress that is easily avoidable for individuals from both species.

Baboons’ fate

Like the majority of science universities, this university in the south-east of Spain particularly offers courses in veterinary practice, biology, and biochemistry, interspersed with practical work involving live animals. And research using baboons is no more pleasing. Many of them were exploited here in the 2000s to study the xenotransplantation of pigs’ organs (a practice that has been condemned for a long time).

More recently, in 2019 and 2020, two articles were published by the University of Murcia in collaboration with French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Quatari counterparts. Here we discovered that more than thirty baboons from this colony had been injected in the brain with products (or had been used as controls) to create the appearance of dementia to be observed for two years, before all being killed for analysis of said brains…

Help us to put an end to these practices

We have started a petition along with Stop Camarles, Action for Primates, and PETA to demand the closure of this baboon colony at the University of Murcia and for the animals to be transferred to a suitable sanctuary. You can sign this petition and share it on social media in order to support our request and encourage Spanish authorities to respond to it favourably.

I demand the closure of the baboon colony in Murcia

These animal testing practices exist in Spain but also in France. You can consult our website dedicated to the figures and to recently authorised experiments for more information.

If you have witnessed practices that outrage you, do not hesitate to oppose them (as the students at the University of Strasbourg did recently, thanks to whom lab work using live hamsters will not be repeated next year) and to contact us to give your witness statement.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice