A newly released undercover investigation by Last Chance for Animals (LCA) exposes the suffering of nine rhesus macaques used in neuroscience research studies at York University in Toronto. For nine months, from 8/2024 to 5/2025, LCA’s investigator worked as a Laboratory Animal Attendant at York and provided care to the macaques. LCA’s investigation marks the first-ever undercover investigation released by an animal rights group into animal research at a Canadian university. The footage from the investigation shows macaques suffering from cranial implants, restraint collars, social isolation, and water deprivation.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO: Video footage recorded inside the lab between September 2024 and March 2025 by a whistleblower working with the U.S.-based group Last Chance for Animals (LCA) revealed macaques outfitted with metal head posts extending upward from the top of their heads, protected by acrylic caps.
Some macaques were recorded constantly pacing and swaying in their cages, scratching at the implants, and struggling to swallow in tight collar restraints…
Reporters also examined health records that the whistleblower says were photographed at the lab from 2009 to 2025. The records cited several health issues, including injuries due to repeated escapes and infections in the head and eye area where research implants, such as eye coils, were installed.
Between 2015 and 2023, five separate infections of head implants were recorded in the macaques, with some involving bleeding, according to the records the whistleblower says are from York.
Between 2010 and 2023, the alleged health records noted 15 incidents of macaques escaping, with some incidents resulting in injuries to the animals…
The records detail incidents of “inferior environmental stimulation, excessive water deprivation, and psychological distress,” said John Gluck, a psychology professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico with experience of macaque laboratory work. He reviewed the materials at the request of the IJB.
“The monkeys depicted in the video records capture all the relevant indicators of mistreatment,” which “likely pollute the value of the behavioural science topics under study,” said Gluck, now an animal rights advocate.
In an expert opinion submitted as part of the complaint to the CCAC, Erin Zamzow, a veterinarian of record for the Washington-based Chimpanzee Sanctuary North, called the apparent “social, mental, physical and nutritional deprivation” of the macaques “inhumane” and said it likely “impairs accurate and reliable scientific results”…
Last Chance for Animals has filed a formal complaint against York to the CCAC, an oversight body that sets guidelines for the treatment of animals used for research. That prompted the current inquiry. SOURCE
PROTEST SCHEDULED:
Last Chance for Animals (LCA), alongside the Anti-Vivisection Alliance, Direct Action Everywhere Toronto, Animal Rights Toronto, and advocates Vikki Lenola and Jenny McQueen, will host a peaceful protest at York University on Friday, May 15. Organizers are calling on York University to immediately end its macaque experimentation program and retire the surviving macaques to a sanctuary. SOURCE
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