Delhi, India: This morning, ahead of the March 10 Parliamentary session, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India and 30 wildlife and animal welfare advocacy organisations sent a letter urging the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) to reinstate legal protections for rhesus macaques under Schedule II of the Wild Life Protection Act (WPA), 1972, and to grant them the highest protection, afforded to many other indigenous species, under Schedule I.

The joint letter points out that the protections—which were removed in 2022 after being in place for 50 years—would prevent rhesus macaques from being killed or captured for the experimentation, meat, or pet industries. It also stresses that, without the protections, the management of rhesus macaques in nature now falls not to experienced forest officials but rather to municipal corporations or law enforcement—neither of which has the expertise, training, or resources required to manage wildlife and which will likely result in inhumane handling or neglect, escalating human-monkey conflicts, and increasing risks to public safety.

The absence of official safeguards also leaves rhesus macaques vulnerable to exploiters who will force them back into street performances—cruel spectacles that have been outlawed since 1998. Rhesus macaques are now also at risk of abduction from their natural habitats, sale into the illegal pet trade, exploitation for social media content, experiments, and even slaughter for meat. A recent report reveals how monkeys kept as pets endure abuse for online videos—beatings, burns, and amputations to elicit reactions, all while suffering loneliness, confinement, and eventual abandonment.

“This regressive shift not only erases years of progress in protecting rhesus macaques—it also leaves them vulnerable to horrific cruelty and exploitation,” says PETA India Science Policy Advisor Dr Anjana Aggarwal. “Stripping rhesus macaques of vital protections is a travesty, and this joint letter is the latest effort in PETA India’s campaign to amplify pressure on decision-makers to rectify it.”

Distinctly social beings, rhesus macaques thrive in large, active groups, are nursed by their mothers for up to one year and love to climb and swim. In addition to being revered in Hinduism, they fulfil an important role in local ecosystems by dispersing seeds – due to their frequent consumption of fruit – and their absence can be detrimental to forests.

In the experimentation industry, which is already bleeding forests dry of rhesus macaques in Asia, monkeys are stolen from the wild, crammed into small wooden crates, and transported in the dark, terrifying cargo holds of planes for as long as 30 hours. The stress of capture and transportation can weaken their immune systems, increasing the risk of spreading zoonotic diseases in India and around the world. In laboratories, monkeys are typically confined – alone – to small metal cages and tormented in experiments in which they’re cut open, poisoned, crippled, forced to become addicted to drugs, electroshocked, and killed.

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