As NIH Prioritizes Animal-Free Research, PETA’s Giant Binoculars Art Installation Magnifies Need to Close Monkey Labs

For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

To coincide with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) landmark announcement this week that it will focus on human-relevant research and reduce experiments on animals, PETA is touring a striking new piece of protest art that gives the public an eye-opening view inside the nation’s secretive primate centers where monkeys are tormented in deadly experiments.

PETA’s installation, “How the Other Half Lives,” features a 7.5-foot-tall pair of binoculars with juxtaposing lenses revealing the startling contrast between monkeys who thrive peacefully with their families in their natural habitats and those caged alone in fear in laboratories, awaiting the next painful procedure at the hands of experimenters.

The installation is popping up in high-traffic locations near all seven National Primate Research Centers—federally funded facilities across the country that for decades have subjected hundreds of thousands of monkeys to painful, ineffective, and deadly experiments that have failed to deliver promised vaccines or cures for human diseases.

PETA’s “How the Other Half Lives” exhibit.

“Through these lenses, viewers get a rare look at what the nation’s primate centers desperately want to obscure: monkeys trapped in barren cages, used and discarded in pointless experiments while their wild kin thrive in rich forests, surrounded by family,” says PETA Senior Science Advisor on Primate Issues Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “We are at a watershed moment in the move away from experiments on monkeys, and PETA urges NIH to move swiftly to shut down these broken, wasteful institutions.”  

The tide is turning against the animal experimentation industry nationwide. In addition to the recent action by NIH, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in April that it is phasing out experiments on animals and shifting its focus to human-relevant research. Thousands of Oregonians have called for the closure of the Oregon primate center in recent weeks, and the Washington primate center is facing growing pressure for public transparency following recent legal victories from PETA, including orders to release the names of its animal experimentation oversight committee members.

Macaques live in complex, matriarchal societies in their natural habitat, forging lifelong bonds, raising their young, and roaming miles daily. They gather in “sleeping trees” at night, huddling close for warmth, safety, and companionship. But this rich existence is being wiped out. Macaque populations are plummeting, in part due to the primate experimentation industry that snatches them from the wild to feed a business filled with cruelty, disease, and death. 

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram