In the lush spring of
2010 at the
University of Wisconsin – Madison, thousands of newly minted graduates walked the stage to receive their diplomas and left campus to begin the next chapter of their lives.
Elsewhere on campus that same weekend in May, away from the celebratory pomp and circumstance, a rhesus macaque named
Cornelius was born in a barren laboratory at the
Wisconsin National Primate Research Center
(WNPRC).
He’s been trapped there ever since.
Cornelius’ decade of life has been defined by loneliness and misery. Like most monkeys born in laboratories, he was taken from his mother when he was just an infant, as his mother was so distressed that she couldn’t even care for him.