IUCN Reaffirms Long-Tailed Macaques’ Endangered Status Despite Industry Pressure aalberg Fri, 10/10/2025 - 15:11 October 10, 2025 Washington, DC—The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) today released an update to its Red List of Threatened Species. The update revealed that the long-tailed macaque (LTM) remains listed as “endangered,” signifying that the species “faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild.” The National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR)—an industry-funded pro-animal-research lobbying group—had petitioned IUCN to downlist the species.LTMs face unprecedented threats to their survival. As noted in the newly published species assessment, they have experienced “an inferred 50–70% decline over the past three generations (30 years) due to habitat loss and high levels of exploitation,” including accelerating demand from the biomedical and pharmaceutical research industries. IUCN anticipates that the species will continue to decline at a similar rate in the future.“We applaud IUCN for its refusal to back down to industry pressure. Science—not special interests—should guide species protection,” said Dr. Joanna Makowska, director of the Animal Welfare Institute’s Animals in Laboratories Program.IUCN originally uplisted LTMs from “vulnerable” to “endangered” in March 2022, citing trade, including for biomedical research, as a major threat to the survival of the species. More than a year later, following a series of events that negatively impacted the lucrative primate trade, NABR petitioned IUCN to reverse its 2022 designation and downlist the species. Since then, NABR and its sister organization, the Foundation for Biomedical Research, have persistently campaigned for downlisting on the grounds that LTMs “play a critical role in developing new drugs, devices and vaccines.”In June 2024, IUCN announced that the species would continue to be classified as endangered while the organization awaited a revised scientific assessment. IUCN has been reviewing the revised assessment for the past several months.More than three years after the original endangered designation, the final verdict is in: Scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the global population of LTMs is severely declining, has experienced localized extinctions, and will continue to decline at a precipitous rate unless threats to the species are mitigated. IUCN will therefore maintain its 2022 endangered designation for LTMs.“The National Association for Biomedical Research has repeatedly campaigned to downlist the species, citing the importance of long-tailed macaques for biomedical research,” Makowska continued. “But that argument is beside the point: If the global population is in freefall, the species should be provided with the appropriate protections. Full stop.”IUCN’s decision may be critical in ensuring LTMs’ long-term survival. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi, and plant species. IUCN listings are grounded in science, and though they don’t carry legislative or regulatory authority on their own, they can influence the level of protections a species receives under international agreements and national laws, including the Conventional on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)—an agreement among 185 nations—and the US Endangered Species Act. Media Contact Information Kim Meneo, Animal Welfare Institutekim@awionline.org, (202) 446-2116 The Animal Welfare Institute (awionline.org) is a nonprofit charitable organization founded in 1951 and dedicated to alleviating animal suffering caused by people. We seek to improve the welfare of animals everywhere: in agriculture, in commerce, in our homes and communities, in research, and in the wild. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn for updates and other important animal protection news.