The recent escape of several research monkeys after the truck carrying them overturned on a Mississippi highway is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and the processes that allow key details of what happens to be kept from the public.
Three monkeys have been on the loose in a rural area along Interstate 59 since Tuesday’s accident, spilling wooden boxes labeled “live monkeys” into the elevated grass near the highway. Since then, searchers wearing masks, face shields and other protective equipment have searched surrounding fields and forests for the missing primates. The local sheriff said five of the 21 rhesus macaques on board were killed during the search, but it was unclear how that happened.
Important details remain secret
Mississippi authorities have not disclosed which company was involved in transporting the monkeys, where the monkeys were taken or who owned them. While Tulane University in New Orleans has acknowledged that the monkeys were housed at its National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, Louisiana, it said it did not belong to them and would not say who owned them.
An initial report from the sheriff described the monkeys as “aggressive” and carrying diseases such as herpes, adding to the confusion. Tulane later said the monkeys were pathogen-free, but it is still unclear what type of research the monkeys were used for.
The questions surrounding the Mississippi River crash and the mystery of why the animals traveled across the South are noteworthy, animal rights activists say.
“If a truck carrying 21 monkeys crashes on a public road, the community has a right to know who these animals belonged to, where they were sent, and what diseases they may have been exposed to and what diseases they were carrying simply because they were involved in the primate experimentation industry,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, senior scientific advisor for primate experimentation at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“It is highly unusual – and deeply disturbing – that Tulane is refusing to name its partner in this delivery,” Jones-Engel added.
It is known that the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck carrying the monkeys was driven by a 54-year-old man from Cascade, Maryland, as it drove off the highway into the grassy median, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said in a statement to The Associated Press. The driver was not injured, nor was his passenger, a 34-year-old resident of Thurmont, Maryland.
Confidentiality is built into contracts and blocks information
Transporting research animals typically requires legally binding contracts that prohibit the parties involved from disclosing information, Tulane University said in a statement to the AP. This is done to protect the animals and protect confidential information, the New Orleans-based university said.
“To the best of Tulane’s knowledge, the 13 recovered animals remain in the possession of their owner and are en route to their original destination,” the statement said.
The crash has drawn a range of reactions – from conspiracy theories suggesting a government plot to make people ailing to earnest reactions from people who oppose animal testing.
“How incredibly sad and wrong,” Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of the crash.
“I have never met a taxpayer who wants their hard-earned money to pay for animal cruelty and who doesn’t support it,” the Georgia congresswoman said in a post on the social platform X. “This must end!”
The Tulane Center has affiliations with more than 155 institutions worldwide
Tulane’s center in Covington has received $35 million in annual support from the National Institutes of Health, and its partners include nearly 500 researchers from more than 155 institutions worldwide, the school said in an Oct. 9 news release. The center has been funded by the NIH since 1964 and federal grants have been a significant source of revenue for the facility, it said.
In July, some of the research center’s 350 employees held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a fresh 10,000-square-foot office building and laboratory at the facility. This fall, the facility’s name was changed from Tulane National Primate Research Center to Tulane National Biomedical Research Center to reflect its broader mission, university officials announced.
Research monkeys have already escaped in South Carolina, Pennsylvania
The Mississippi crash is one of at least three major monkey outbreaks in the U.S. in the past four years.
Last November, 43 rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound where they are bred for medical research after an enclosure was not fully sealed. Employees at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, set up traps to capture them. However, some spent two months in the woods this winter, enduring a infrequent snowstorm. In overdue January, the last four escapees were recaptured after being lured back into captivity with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
In January 2022, several cynomolgus monkeys escaped when a truck pulling a trailer with about 100 animals collided with a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway, authorities said. The monkeys were taken to a quarantine facility at an undisclosed location after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on a flight from Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, authorities said. A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all the animals were dealt with within about a day, but three were euthanized for unknown reasons.
