Britches (monkey)

Britches (monkey)

Britches (born March 1985) is a stump-tailed macaque monkey who was born into a breeding colony at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). He was removed from his mother at birth, had his eyelids sewn shut, and had an electronic sonar device attached to his head—a Trisensor Aid, an experimental version of a blind travel aid, the Sonicguide—as part of a three-year sensory-deprivation study involving 24 infant monkeys. The experiments were designed to study the behavioral and neural development of monkeys reared with a sensory substitution device.

Acting on a tip-off from a student, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) removed Britches from the laboratory on April 20, 1985, when he was five weeks old. The raid also saw the theft of 467 mice, cats, opossums, pigeons, rabbits, and rats, and a reported $700,000-worth of damage to equipment. A spokesman for the university said that allegations of animal mistreatment were absolutely false, and that the raid caused long-term damage to its research projects.

The ALF handed the video of their raid over to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which released it. The NIH conducted an eight-month investigation into the animal care program at the university and concluded it was an appropriate program, and that no corrective action was necessary.