Free, For Now
 Two
dozen rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from a federal
laboratory in Louisiana on Tuesday, liberated (if
only temporarily) from their bondage. It was not
immediately known how they got loose, nor how they
escaped through an exterior fenced area and out
into a local forest. For most of the monkeys, it
was only a temporary reprieve; as of this writing,
only eight of the two dozen were still at large.
Let's hope they successfully evade capture and live
out the rest of their lives as free monkeys in the
Bayou country. They can serve as heroes to their
other 5,000 captive brethren, on whom the staff of
the Tulane Regional Primate Research Center
conducts infectious disease experiments (the
escapees were allegedly disease-free).
Sadly, it seems the destiny of this species of
monkey has become one of servitude to mankind, like
the cow and the chicken. The first 34 hits of a
Google
search for "rhesus macaques" generated a myriad
of results for AIDS, Alzheimer's and other
laboratory research sites. The first hit with
zoological information about the species itself
didn't come up until #35.
Statistics for the number of monkeys used in
medical experimentation are hard to come by, but
some estimates put the number in the high tens of
thousands per year.
As a child, I wanted to be a primatologist when
I grew up. Admittedly, I didn't know that big word
at the time, but monkeys and apes fascinated me. I
couldn't get enough of them. Life's twists and
turns took me away from math and science, but a
soft spot for these complex creatures—our
nearest non-human kin—has always remained in
my heart.
The specter of animal experimentation on
primates has thus always disturbed me. I understand
the medical breakthroughs that have been achieved
through such research (macaques, for instance, were
used in the development of the polio vaccine), and
I have heard the ethical arguments in support of
it.  But
it's hard to consider ethics when you see a monkey
with its head in a vice, electrodes plugged
directly into its brain. It's virtually impossible
to gaze into a primate's eyes and not see
intelligence looking back at you.
I've tried not to think about this moral dilemma
too much. As I avoid thoughts of cattle and
slaughterhouses whenever I sink my teeth into a
juicy steak, I submerge the ugly reality of animal
experimentation whenever I encounter it in the news
or elsewhere. If I were to ever visit a
slaughterhouse and see cattle being butchered, I
doubt I'd ever be able eat another hamburger.
Similarly, if I were to witness medical
experimentation on primates firsthand, I don't
think I'd ever be able to wash away the shame of
being human.
I freely admit the moral cowardice of my
avoidance of reality, but I have been unable to
come to terms with the ethical dilemma that animal
experimentation presents. For now, all I can do is
celebrate the ephemeral liberation of a symbolic
segment of the captive macaque population.
Development note: I've
noticed that this site doesn't look like it should
in Netscape Navigator. Rather than waste time
jury-rigging it to look right in a
soon-to-be-obsolete browser, I'll just add the
cliché "This site best viewed with Internet
Explorer."
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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