No to experiments on grey mouse lemurs!


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No to experiments on grey mouse lemurs!


The French National Museum of Natural History (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - MNHN), has the world’s largest breeding unit for mouse lemurs, large-eyed primates which are members of a species native to Madagascar. It uses them for experiments and also sells them to other laboratories throughout the world.

Each of the 500 lemurs kept in an MNHN annex in Brunoy weighs around 60 grammes. They are as easy to handle as mice, but their genetic code means that the results of tests on them are considered to be much closer to those expected from humans. 

France does more experiments on primates than any other European country. Whether the studies are behavioural or toxicological, they often cause acute suffering (for example, the animals are starved, or burnt by products).  In the end, the mouse lemurs are all put to sleep, or actually decapitated, their bodies autopsied, sampled and sent off for post-mortem analysis.

One Voice has written to the President of the MNHN, the Director of the Essonne department DDPP [whose responsibilities include animal protection], and the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, asking exactly what is happening to the mouse lemurs on lab benches in the Brunoy annex of the Museum of Natural History. Animal experiments on great apes are prohibited, but size should not be the sole criterion! These primates can feel joy, fear, pain, and more ...

The National Museum of Natural History should not be causing suffering to animals. It should be protecting them! I, the undersigned, stand with One Voice in demanding that tests on grey mouse lemurs must stop.  We are also calling for an end to deliveries to laboratories and the closure of this breeding centre for animal experiments.