VICTORY! Construction of Bioculture's Monkey Factory Halted

This year is coming to a close, but we're not done yet: The victories keep pouring, or should I say, roaring in! We recently reported the end of cruel cat labs at Texas Tech and Robert's "retirement" from experiments at the University of Utah. Today, we're thrilled to announce yet another huge victory—this time, for thousands of monkeys.

For months, PETA has been working with an international coalition of animal protection groups to stop the construction of a massive monkey-breeding facility in Guayama, Puerto Rico. Bioculture, a company that sells primates to laboratories, had plans to capture thousands of monkeys from Mauritius and ship them to Puerto Rico so that their offspring could be sold for use in frightening, painful, and deadly experiments in the U.S. and elsewhere.

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We have just learned that in response to a lawsuit filed by local citizens and PETA, a Superior Court judge in Puerto Rico has ruled in activists' favor and halted all further construction of the Bioculture facility.

Turns out there are serious problems with Bioculture's applications and permits, including that the construction of the primate facility on the land it currently occupies would be against the law. An investigation by Puerto Rico's Senate Environmental Committee also discovered that Bioculture did not properly address the detrimental impact the project could have on local citizens and their water supplies and land and stated that it "is not sensible" for Puerto Rico to support the project.

Despite this great news, I imagine Bioculture execs trying to regroup, telling themselves, "Where there's a will [for us to cash in on cruelty], there's a way." Help us nix that notion by urging officials to permanently put a stop to this monkey-breeding facility and others in the future.

Written by Karin Bennett