Baboon Scheduled For Vasectomy Fled RPA Hospital With His Two Baboon Partners

Animal rights activists question the official explanation about what the baboons were doing in the medical research center.

Damjan

• Published in News
• February 26, 2020

One of the baboons who got away from a medical research facility in Sydney on Tuesday was there for a vasectomy, NSW Health confirms.

Police forces were called into a car parking near Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown sometime around 5.30 pm after the monkeys escaped during transport, an NSW Police spokeswoman stated.

The fugitives were contained by police officers and medical professionals before handlers from Taronga Zoo sedated them.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said to the AAP there was a lock malfunction either on the van or cage that was carrying a 15-year-old male and two females apes.

“The three baboons decided to take a bit of a look around RPA grounds,” he said.

“They didn’t know what to do, nor did the people around them.”

Hazzard claims the baboons were not there for research purposes, and the male was at the medical center for a vasectomy.

The two female baboons were believed his “wives” and had been taken along to “keep him calm.”

“If he had been kept fertile, he would have had to (have) moved from the family he knows,” Hazzard said.

The health minister stated the baboons should be conscious and fine in a few hours.

He then added that the baboons are involved in research programs that include a whole range of health problems, but when they do their part, they’re always sent back to their colony.

NSW Police said earlier that there was no direct threat to the public but that people are recommended to avoid that area.

"Major concern"

Animal activist and former GP Kevin Coleman told the baboons’ escape was a “major concern” which might raise biosecurity concerns.

“If an animal the size of a baboon can escape, how many mice have escaped, how many other animals have escaped?” he said to AAP.

“We have to have transparency on these issues.”

“We just don’t know, and this is the problem. We have to have transparency on these issues.”

The Sydney Save Animals in Laboratories spokesperson stated that he believes medical specialists are conducting a research into creating human-baboon hybrid organs to battle the transplant crisis.

Hazzard rejected these claims concisely.

“It’s rubbish,” he said.

“These baboons were simply there for the old vasectomy,” he told.

Damjan