Macaques and other old world monkeys face welfare challenges from habitat loss, the pet trade, use in biomedical research, and conflict with farming communities across Asia.
Old world monkey welfare spans research use, the pet trade, human-wildlife conflict, and tourism management. Macaques in research breeding facilities may face better managed conditions than wild populations, but their use in biomedical research raises both welfare and ethical questions. Macaques kept as pets experience chronic solitary confinement incompatible with their highly social nature. Temple macaques fed tourist snacks rather than natural foods suffer nutritional welfare problems. Each context requires different solutions - better alternatives to macaque research models, enforcement against the macaque pet trade, and evidence-based wildlife management.