Inside the secret baboon breeding facility in Sydney’s west

More than 60km west of Sydney’s CBD is a secret baboon breeding facility where “Frankenstein-like surgical experiments” are performed.

In the rural town of Wallacia, 68km west of Sydney’s CBD, lives a colony of baboons bred specifically for research purposes.

Information surrounding the Sydney Local Health District’s (SLHD) colony is difficult, if not impossible, to find.

The exact number of animals at the facility is not publicly available, and animal welfare organisations have said requests to tour the facility have been refused.

Baboons at the Wallacia facility are understood to be kept in family groups in cages with some outside access, and “would have to be supplied with some environmental enrichment”, such as tyre swings or food.

In a statement, a NSW Health spokesman said that the Australian National Baboon Colony “was established to enable important biomedical research to be undertaken in Australia by leading researchers committed to advancing health through research”.

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While NSW Health maintains that a rigorous ethics process is required and the animals are only used for medical research when it is “scientifically warranted and there are no appropriate alternatives”, PETA Australia told news.com.au that the truth is much more sinister.

“Breeding colonies such as the one in Wallacia exist to replenish animal ‘stock’, and they’re common because animals used in laboratories are typically killed,” PETA’s senior outreach and partnerships manager Emily Rice said, adding that there is a lot of secrecy around the Wallacia colony.

“This may be as a result of the experiments they’re subjected to – which can involve infection with diseases, chemical lesions to the brain, or the extraction of organs from live foetuses – or because they’re disposed of when they’re no longer useful to experimenters.”

It was calculated in 2017 that 272 primates – baboons, marmosets and macaques – were used in experiments across parts of the nation, but Ms Rice said current data on the number of animals “suffering” in all Australian laboratories was unavailable.

The three baboons that managed to escape from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Tuesday. Picture: Supplied

A spokesman for the Department of Primary Industries said in a 2016 article that information on the number of animals held at a breeding facility at any one time was not held by the DPI, but the Wallacia colony was allowed to house up to 165 baboons.

“What we do know is that the National Health and Medical Research Council supports the use of national breeding colonies for primates via research grants, as well as by making annual contributions to the National Baboon Colony and the National Non-Human Primate Breeding and Research Facility,” Ms Rice said.

“That’s taxpayer money funding facilities and practices that, until Tuesday, most people didn’t know existed.”

The NHMRC did not respond when contacted by news.com.au for comment, but according to Gizmodo, ceased funding to the Wallacia centre in 2018 and do not have any role in the operations or management of the facility.

Awareness of the facility came to light on Tuesday, when three baboons – one male, two female – managed to get free while being transported to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney’s inner west.

Awareness of the Wallacia facility came to light after the baboons’ escape. Picture: Christian Gilles

The male was on his way to have a vasectomy at the RPA, where most medical research using baboons is conducted in an animal research laboratory. The two females were said to be there to keep him company.

A spokeswoman from the Sydney Local Health District told The Sydney Morning Heraldin 2016 that the Wallacia baboon colony were used for research on treatments for conditions like pre-eclampsia, complicated diabetes, kidney disorders and vascular diseases.

But the article voiced concerns that “Frankenstein-like surgical experiments” were being done on primates that may have included an apparent cover-up of a kidney transplant from a pig to a baboon.

Up until this week, only 37 per cent of Australians were aware that monkeys were used for national medical research, according to a 2018 public opinion poll conducted by Humane Research Australia.

NSW Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst told news.com.au that the primates’ dash for freedom was the first time “Australians saw the hidden faces behind animal experimentation in this country and realised the truth”.

The baboons have been spotted! Details shortly on #9News. #BaboonWatch #SydneyBaboons

📸 - Michael Tran pic.twitter.com/Ww7uqc6n2R

— Nine News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) February 25, 2020

“I don’t think it goes too far to suggest that these animals know and understand that they are being used in experimentation,” Ms Hurst said, adding that baboons have a genetic similarity to humans of 94 per cent.

“I think there is a very real chance that they are aware that they are prisoners to human domination and cruel experiments.”

Aside from the ethical concerns, Humane Research Australia’s chief executive officer Helen Marston told news.com.au that the use of primates for medical research has proven to be ineffective at providing substantial contributions to biomedical research.

“This is due to biological, anatomical and metabolic differences between species resulting in exponential variables in data when applied to humans and therefore renders any animal – even our closest genetic relatives – unsuitable as models for human disease,” Ms Marston explained.

Ms Rice agreed, saying that animal cruelty wasn’t the only reason the medical research was kept a secret.

“Systematic reviews have repeatedly found that experiments on animals lead to costly and fruitless clinical trials that can endanger human life, cause millions of animals to suffer, and lead researchers away from possible beneficial therapies,” she said.

Regardless of whether the baboons’ escape on Tuesday was an intentional flee attempt to avoid further procedures, or just an opportunity to run, Ms Rice said it “should lead us to question not their motives but rather those of the experimenters who continue to exploit them”.

“It also indicates that the facility is unable to secure and care for the animals under its control, and that makes us wonder what other negligence could be going on there,” she said.

“These baboons made a desperate bid for freedom, and they deserve to be retired to a sanctuary.”