California National Primate Research Center

The California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) is a United States federal government funded biomedical research facility, dedicated to improving human and animal health, and located on the University of California, Davis campus in Davis, California. The CNPRC is part of a network of eight national primate research centers developed to breed, house, care for and study primates for medical and behavioral research. Opened in 1962, research at this secure facility has investigated many diseases, ranging from asthma and Alzheimer's disease to AIDS and other infectious diseases, and has also produced discoveries about autism. CNPRC currently houses about 4,700 monkeys, the majority of which are rhesus macaques, with small populations of cynomolgus monkeys and South American titi monkeys. The Center, located on 300 acres (1.2 km²) on the western edge of the UC Davis campus, is sponsored by the National Center for Research Resources, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Care and treatment issues
The Davis center attracts researchers and scientists from fifteen other states and attention from animal rights activists. About half of the center's primates live outdoors, and the other half in small cages, a fact described as inhumane by animal rights activists. In many cases, animals involved in research must be 'humanely' euthanized to allow analysis of the pathologies of diseases or treatments on tissues and organs.

Jane Goodall, the noted field research primatologist, has decried treatment and use of small, barren cages at such research facilities, contending primates suffer terribly from being kept in isolation from others of their kind.

The "Monkey Farm" controversy
Controversy over the center's activities has led some detractors to refer to it as the "Monkey Farm."


 * On August 21, 2004, seven primates (non-human) died of heat exhaustion after a heater malfunctioned.  The event occurred at an overflow facility for the primate center on the UC Davis campus.
 * In February 2002, a monkey crawled into a drain pipe and was killed by an impeller.