Newton’s

Newton is spunky and eccentric, most likely due to his poor vision and his life behind bars. He walks in a robust manner, knocking over toys in his path. He has beautiful, wispy hairs on his cheeks.

Newton was sentenced to be disposed of at the age of four years old because he was no longer useful for a research study. They suspected he had glaucoma and thus could not be used for their eye research at Queens University in Ontario. He came to Fauna in February 2005. When Fauna was originally approached by Queen’s to take Newton, we didn’t feel it would be okay for him to come alone. Fauna had a conversation with Queens about retiring a group of female monkeys from a study that was to be terminated indefinitely. We were misled by the lab and they only spared one other monkey, Darla, who came with Newton in 2005. Over the year we reached out many times to the lab to try to retire Newton’s friends to Fauna, but sadly it never worked.

Animal protection groups advocating for animals in labs, such as NEAVS (The New England Anti-Vivisection Society), focus on reducing, re-using or replacing animals in research. In Newton’s case, the lab didn’t want to “re-use” him, but rather terminate him. This would mean bringing in another baby monkey to take his place. Luckily, Fauna rescued him. However, this is a tricky situation that many sanctuaries face — because rescuing one leaves the door open for another to replace him or her in the lab. NEAVS is working on replacing animals in research completely with a non-animal model. Until then, unfortunately, re-using individuals — albeit disturbing and depressing for said individual — does keep less new monkeys from entering the labs. Darla is an example of a monkey that was re-used for both the menstrual and then the anorexia studies.

Newton loves exploring his numerous enclosures. He loves enrichment, and will always go for enrichment first over anything, even food! He loves to tear things apart to see what is inside. We are so grateful he is here with us at Fauna.