Sponsors (46)
The bill preserves regulated primate research and allows current owners to keep animals if they register, but sharply restricts new private ownership and public-facing uses of primates, shifting compliance costs and lost revenue onto small owners and exhibitors.
Scientists and medical researchers at USDA-registered facilities can continue authorized nonhuman primate research under federal registration, preserving ongoing scientific and medical studies and potential public-health benefits.
Current private possessors and small businesses that already own nonhuman primates can keep them if they register within 180 days, avoiding immediate confiscation or forced disposals.
Private owners, exhibitors, and breeders are barred from acquiring, selling, breeding, or possessing most nonhuman primates going forward, disrupting the pet and exotic-animal markets and eliminating related income streams.
Small exhibitors, nonprofits, and similar organizations that keep grandfathered primates are prohibited from allowing direct public contact with those animals, reducing visitor-driven revenue and educational programming income.
Possessors of grandfathered primates must register within 180 days and meet ongoing restrictions, creating administrative burdens and compliance costs and potentially requiring facility upgrades or relocations.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds all live nonhuman primates as prohibited wildlife under the Lacey Act, banning their interstate/foreign trade, possession, sale, and breeding with narrow exceptions.
Introduced May 5, 2025 by Mike Quigley · Last progress May 5, 2025
Prohibits trade, transport, sale, breeding, and possession of all live nonhuman primate species across interstate and international commerce, while creating narrow exceptions for expedited transport, preexisting owners who register and agree to limits, and registered USDA research facilities. The Interior Department must write implementing rules within 180 days, and the law also fixes a few technical wording and reference errors in the Lacey Act and related statutes.