Wild baboons kept in 'horrifying' labs

Medical researchers in South Africa are benefiting from a cheap supply of live subjects on which to experiment - baboons trapped in the wild after wreaking havoc on farms.

At least two universities - the University of Cape Town and North West University - use wild-caught baboons for research, a practice now banned in Europe and Australia due to animal welfare concerns.

Primate experts say that to confine a "born free" primate in a cage is unnecessarily cruel, and that it is preferable to use animals bred in captivity.

However, it is far more expensive to breed primates in captivity than to catch them in the wild.

Now UCT staff and researchers are locked in fierce debate over whether to continue experimenting on wild-caught animals, and will hold a meeting on the issue later this month.

"It's a political hot potato at the moment," said one UCT scientist who did not want to be named. "I don't want to stop animal experimentation; I want to make sure it happens under the best international practice, and that includes not using wild-caught animals."

A US primatologist now based in Cape Town, Tim Newman, said there were valid arguments for using primates in medical research, depending what tests were done, how the animals were treated and what happened to them afterwards.

"Imagine a wild primate - they have a stress response very much like our own. They don't understand what's happening to them, they're almost in a perpetual state of fear ...

"If one must use primates in research, then I would think there's a big difference, morally and ethically, between using a captive-bred animal rather than a wild-caught animal."

Newman said research animals in South Africa were generally kept in small cages with only artificial lighting, "conditions that would horrify most of us".

"These are social animals and, particularly if they're wild-caught, it's got to be a horrible experience for them."

Peter Lloyd, a senior scientist at Cape Nature, said farmers who wanted to sell baboons to researchers had to prove the animals were a threat to their crops, and that they had implemented measures like electric fencing to try to solve the problem.

"We can't forbid it, but we can manage it by making it as difficult as possible," he said.

Lloyd said Western Cape authorities had received only one application in the last five years from a farmer wanting to trap baboons and sell them.

The price for a wild-caught baboon is anywhere between R7500 and R15000, according to Este Kotze, an inspector with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who serves on a national ethics committee overseeing the use of animals in research.

"We oppose the use of non-human primates, but we have to accept that some research continues," Kotze said.

"We make recommendations on alternatives."

Louis Jacobs, a spokesman for North West University, said the university had last used baboons for medical research four years ago.

"Sixteen baboons, categorised as problem animals, were caught with the assistance of and permits from nature conservation, at a holiday resort in Rustenburg," he said. "Upon completion of the research, the animals were humanely put down."

Jacobs said all research on animals at the university had to be approved by the ethics committee on which the SPCA served.

Most medical research on baboons involves testing medicines, including potential Aids treatments, and surgical procedures. Lloyd said "huge" numbers of baboons were taken from the wild in the 1970s for use in heart transplant research.

"It's still not a perfect system; but we're in the middle and we have to address issues from both sides."

Toni Brokhoven, a spokesman for the animal rights group Beauty Without Cruelty, condemned all research on live animals.

"Whether they're wild-caught or captive-bred, the point is that they're still wild animals," she said. "Two or three generations down the line does not make them happy to be worked on, and does not make them any less uncomfortable being in cages."