Protect OurPrimates

A new UK campaign · Getting organised

Britain still experiments on monkeys. We're organising to end it.

Every year thousands of monkeys are bred, shipped across the world and used in British labs. Most people have no idea it still happens. We're building a movement that changes that, starting now, starting with you.

Join the movement Read the facts
A long-tailed macaque looking directly at the camera
Photo: Toby Christopher / Pexels

The numbers they'd rather you didn't see

  • 2,236 experiments on monkeys in Great Britain in 2025, up 15% on the year before Home Office, 2025
  • 88% were regulatory tests, mostly safety testing of new medicines Home Office, 2025
  • 95% of the macaques used were born overseas, in Africa or Asia, and imported Home Office, 2025
  • 47% were the offspring of wild-caught mothers, up from 27% the year before Home Office, 2025

See every figure and its source →

What's happening

Bred, crated, flown in, tested on

Most monkeys in British labs are long-tailed macaques: intelligent, social animals that live in family groups. The species is now listed as Endangered.

Almost all of them start life at breeding farms in Africa and Asia. They are crated and flown, often for more than a day, to UK contract labs. Most are then used to test whether new drugs are safe, in procedures that can last weeks.

The government says it wants to phase animal testing down. Last year the number of experiments on monkeys went up.

That gap between words and reality is why we exist.

Over 90% of drugs that appear safe and effective in animals do not go on to receive FDA approval.

US Food and Drug Administration, April 2025

Where we are

We're just getting started. That's the point.

Protect Our Primates is a brand new, volunteer-run campaign. No big charity budget, no corporate backers. Just people who think this should end, getting organised. Here's the plan.

  1. 01

    Build the list

    Every name on our list is a person we can call on when it matters. This is where it starts.

  2. 02

    Get the facts out

    Most of the public doesn't know this happens. Clear, sourced information, shared widely, changes that.

  3. 03

    Organise locally

    Groups in towns and cities across the UK, so people can act together wherever they live.

  4. 04

    Push for the alternatives

    Hold the government to its own promise to replace animals in science, and back the human-relevant methods that make it possible.

Join the movement All the ways to help →

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