Written by Jeff Mackey
PETA protesters wearing monkey masks and holding signs reading, "Deplane Monkeys," recently held demonstrations outside the Chicago headquarters of United Airlines and the U.S. headquarters of Air France in New York. PETA is urging the airlines to commit to a ban on shipping primates to laboratories, as almost every airline in the world already has, including Delta, American, US Air, and China Airlines.
PETA demonstrators also dropped a banner from a busy overpass next to United HQ, generating a lot of views and picture-taking:
United Airlines, which recently acquired Continental Airlines, is now the last U.S. air carrier without a policy prohibiting the transportation of primates to be abused and killed in crude, painful, and archaic experiments in laboratories.
The cruelty involved in laboratory experiments on primates and other animals should be self-evident: After hearing from PETA about the horrors that cats and dogs endure in labs, for instance, Nippon Cargo Airlines, which had been shipping dogs and cats from the United States to Japanese labs, implemented a worldwide policy against shipping any animals to labs.
When primates are shipped to laboratories, they're first separated from their families and locked inside dark, terrifying cargo holds for as long as 30 hours. Then they're delivered to facilities that will poison them, cut them up, and kill them. Many monkeys who are shipped to laboratories were first ripped from their homes in the wild.
Please join PETA in telling airlines that still transport monkeys to U.S. laboratories to adopt a policy against the transportation of nonhuman primates for use in experiments.
Written by PETA
After eight months of pressure from PETA and our supporters, the prestigious scientific journal Nature has confirmed that China Southern Airlines is no longer transporting primates to the United States for use in experiments.
Because there remain few viable options for exporting primates from China, primate breeders and experimenters are currently in a panic about how to bring monkeys into the U.S. to torment in laboratories. This victory comes after the airline canceled a shipment of 80 monkeys to the U.S. last August, where they were to be mutilated and killed in cruel experiments. China Southern halted the shipment after receiving thousands of e-mails and hundreds of phone calls from PETA supporters as well as a visit to its Los Angeles office from a PETA employee dressed in a monkey costume.
China Southern is China's largest airline, and it joins Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Lufthansa, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic, among others, in refusing to transport primates to be tortured.
Members of PETA and Stop UBC Animal Research converged on the Animal Transportation Association meeting in Vancouver, Canada, on Sunday to urge the few remaining airlines that still deliver primates to desolation and torture in laboratories to stop accepting blood money and ban the practice.
Help end shipments of primates to laboratories by asking this dwindling list of airlines to transport only willing passengers.
Written by Alisa Mullins
You don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar to know that all mammals need water to survive, yet this basic biology principle is apparently lost on the clever folks at Harvard. For the second time in three months, a monkey has died of dehydration at the Ivy League institution: On Sunday, an elderly cotton-top tamarin was euthanized at Harvard Medical School (HMS) after it was discovered that the monkey's cage had no water bottle, an inexcusable oversight that led the university to suspend new experiments at its New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC).
The monkey's death came on the same day that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made public an inspection report that revealed three other incidents involving the neglectful endangerment of monkeys at the facility in the past three months, including another monkey's death. This recent series of deaths has prompted PETA to call on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend all funding to HMS and NEPRC and to demand a refund of any grant money spent on activity that violated federal animal protection laws, which is required by federal grant guidelines.
Milo was imprisoned at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), a facility where PETA conducted a shocking undercover investigation
The USDA has cited HMS and NEPRC for more than 20 violations of the Animal Welfare Act during the past two years, including the following incidents involving serious injuries and deaths:
What PETA is asking for isn't unprecedented. Other universities, including the University of Connecticut and the University of Michigan, have had to return thousands of dollars in grant money after PETA and others uncovered animal welfare violations. After all, it seems only reasonable that our hard-earned tax dollars shouldn't be paying for activity that violates the law.
While the recent deaths of monkeys at Harvard appear to have resulted from carelessness, HMS and NEPRC confine 2,300 other primates and deliberately commit unspeakable horrors against them, such as drilling holes into their skulls and subjecting them to cocaine addiction experiments. Ask the NIH to stop funding this cruelty at Harvard and elsewhere.
Exciting news! Two more air carriers, TAM and Hainan Airlines, have announced that they will no longer transport primates for use in cruel laboratory experiments! PETA and other animal protection organizations put the pressure on the airlines after it was revealed that they were recently handling shipments of monkeys to laboratories in North America.
Richard Fisher | cc by 2.0
Now we're that much closer to stopping the transport of primates for use in experiments once and for all—but we're not there yet.
Please continue to tell the few remaining airlines that ship primates to laboratories—including Air France, China Eastern Airlines, and Continental Airlines—that cruelty should be grounded.
In the triumphant finale to a long, hard legal struggle over a suit filed by PETA and citizens of Guayama, Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican Supreme Court upheld the decisions of the lower courts that the monkey-breeding facility built in Guayama by Bioculture, Inc., was constructed illegally and therefore cannot be opened for business!
The court also denied Bioculture's motion to reconsider the ruling. So, as Kathy Guillermo, PETA's vice president of laboratory investigations, put it, "The final nail is now in Bioculture's coffin, and the 4,000 monkeys and generations of their offspring who would have suffered and died for the company's profit have been officially spared."
Muchas gracias to everyone who helped put a stop to Bioculture's plan to capture monkeys from their homes in the wild, imprison them in cages, and then sell their offspring for use in painful and deadly experiments at notorious facilities such as Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Charles River Laboratories, and Covance.
Now, let's put another nail in the nasty monkey-pimping-and-torture coffin. Click here to urge airlines that still transport nonhuman primates to U.S. laboratories for cruel experiments to cut out the monkey business.
A bit of good news from the Great White North: After years of pressure from animal rights activists—and after hearing from PETA recently—Air Canada, one of only two major North American airlines that still fly primates to laboratories, is taking steps to end the shipments. The airline has requested permission from the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) to enact a ban on transporting primates destined for experiments, a practice that the CTA currently requires Air Canada to engage in. PETA had been in contact with Air Canada about its policy as part of an international campaign to stop airlines from transporting primates to laboratories, where they will be caged, experimented on, and killed.
Recently, PETA exposed appalling cruelty to monkeys at one of the largest importers of primates in the U.S.—Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) in Everett, Washington—after being contacted by a distraught worker there. The photos and video footage recorded by the whistleblower show sick, distressed monkeys suffering after being injected with chemicals and subjected to violent handling.
Please support the growing number of compassionate and progressive airlines—including Delta, American Airlines, and British Airways—that are saying "No" to primate abuse, and click here to ask the Canadian Transport Authority to grant Air Canada's request to ban the shipment of primates to labs.
Click here to ask the Canadian Transport Authority to grant Air Canada’s request to ban the shipment of primates to labs
Written by Michelle Sherrow
After PETA released video footage sent to us by a whistleblower inside Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) in Everett, Washington, showing egregious abuse of monkeys inside the laboratory, area residents were so outraged that they decided to do something about it. More than two dozen residents, local PETA supporters, and members of Action for Animals held signs and chanted slogans outside SNBL during the morning commute, calling on the company to stop its mistreatment of animals and switch to humane, non-animal alternatives.
According to the whistleblower, monkeys at SNBL have their blood drawn so many times a day that their veins become damaged and workers dig and poke for a spot to draw blood as the monkeys scream in pain and try to jerk away. The whistleblower reported, "Eventually, many of the monkeys stop fighting and reacting … it is like the life is gone from them." Monkeys are also immobilized in restraint chairs for many hours while workers pump drugs into their bodies. They struggle to break free but sometimes collapse under the physical and emotional stress. Some of the monkeys never recover.
The protesters in Everett didn't get mad—they got active! You can, too, by clicking here to urge the airlines that are still delivering primates to SNBL and other laboratories to ground the practice.
In a huge victory for vervet monkeys, U.S. military officials have confirmed that the Army is ending cruel and archaic monthly training exercises at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in which monkeys are poisoned with a drug overdose that makes them suffer from violent seizures in a crude demonstration of the effects of nerve-agent exposure. Instead of abusing terrified monkeys, Aberdeen—the only Army base in the country that uses animals for this training—will now use human patient simulators, just as every other military facility already does. The move follows months of vigorous campaigning by PETA.
PETA's campaign against the barbaric chemical casualty training exercises included a series of protests this week outside the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army. Supporters of this effort included veterans, physicians, active service members, and actor Woody Harrelson, who sent a letter on PETA's behalf to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno. Many others have also been protesting at Army recruitment centers, flooding the offices of Army officials with e-mails and phone calls, and even gathering outside the homes of Army officials affiliated with the monkey lab. One PETA member even disrupted a speaking event last week by Aberdeen's commanding general, Nick Justice.
Please send an e-mail to Maj. Gen. Nick Justice to thank him for this compassionate decision and ask that he ensure that the transition to simulators be made immediately.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
Victory: As a result of PETA's campaign, the Army announced that it is ending its cruel use of monkeys in chemical attack training exercises and will instead use advanced human simulators!
On Monday, dozens of PETA members greeted the 32,000 attendees—who included Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno—of the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) in Washington, D.C. The protesters were there to urge the Army to stop poisoning primates in a cruel training exercise at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Many veterans and former military medical professionals have already joined PETA's campaign, and the protesters received more encouragement from men and women in uniform attending the meeting.
The Army's exercises involve injecting vervet monkeys with a drug overdose in a crude attempt to recreate the effects of a nerve-agent attack. The monkeys suffer from uncontrollable twitching and seizures, and some even stop breathing. One monkey suffered gaping lacerations, a torn lip, and bitten- or torn-off fingers in fights with other monkeys caused by the stress of the constant physical abuse and confinement.
Other military courses already use human simulators, which can mimic the effects of nerve-agent exposure. Tell Congress to take action now to save monkeys and troops by replacing animals with advanced non-animal training methods.
Monkey #V357 was born on the island of St. Kitts, where he was either captured in the wild or born in captivity. If he was abducted from his home in the wild, he likely watched trappers shoot his mother out of a tree with a dart gun, and then was ripped from her arms. If he was born into a breeding facility, he was forcibly—and permanently—torn from his screaming mother, probably within days of birth.
He was then crammed into a tiny crate and flown to Miami, Florida, in a plane’s dark, loud and terrifying cargo hold. There, he was piled onto a truck like luggage and driven up the eastern seaboard to the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
#V357, the only “name” the Army gave him in its laboratory, spent the next three years of his life locked in a steel cage and being used over-and-over as a target for nerve-agent attack training. Every eight weeks, experimenters injected him with a massive drug overdose to crudely mimic a chemical attack and trainees looked on as he twitched uncontrollably, sweated profusely, violently convulsed, and struggled to breathe. The psychological distress that this constant physical abuse and confinement caused led #V357 and the other monkeys imprisoned at Aberdeen to fight each other, and he suffered gaping lacerations, a torn lip, and bitten or torn off fingers. The injuries did not stop the training exercises.
After three years of being tormented in this cruel training course, the Army began punishing his small body in a different experiment. They injected him with a chemical agent that severely restricted blood flow to his brain. After one final injection and several hours of suffering, he died at night, alone in his cold, barren cage.
It is too late for #V357, but it’s not too late for the rest of the monkeys the Army is still tormenting in these cruel and ineffective training courses. Please help stop this by signing this White House petition to replace the monkeys with modern, superior human simulators.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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