Aerial View of the Sabana Seca

Sabana Seca

The Sabana Seca is the administrative headquarters and base of operations for the CPRC. It is located approximately 10 miles west of San Juan on a 252-acre tract of land. Approximately 17 acres are contained within a secure peripheral fence. This area contains offices, clinic, laboratories for reproductive biology and bone densitometry, necropsy and maintenance buildings, and approximately 60 corrals and enclosures that house approximately 1,000 rhesus monkeys in conventional and specific pathogen free (SPF) breeding programs. The remaining property is a conservation and ecological buffer zone of limestone hills (mogotes), subtropical forest and wetlands. This area has been determined by the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service to be the known habitat of the Puerto Rican boa (Epicrates inornatus) and the plant Daphnopsis Helleriana.

All of the monkeys housed at SSFS are rhesus macaques derived from the CS colony or their offspring born at SSFS. A conventional breeding group of rhesus macaques consists of a number of adult, juvenile, and infant male and female individuals all of which are members of the same social group. The retroviral and viral profile of the individuals in a conventional breeding group contains animals that are B virus and/or SLTV-1 positive animals but negative to SRV, and SIV. The offspring produced by the conventional breeding program supply the SPF candidates for the NIH-funded SPF programs at the SSFS. The SPF breeding programs consist of monkeys that are free of herpes B-virus, type D retrovirus, STLV-1, SIV and SV-40.

This web site is supported by the 5P40RR003640 grant from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and by the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Grant (G12 RR03051) from the National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health.