Feds Stop All Monkey Imports to U.S. Laboratories After Push From PETA

For Immediate Release:
March 2, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo’s statement regarding the move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to require a DNA test to prove that monkeys imported into the U.S. bound for laboratory experiments haven’t been abducted from their forest homes:

Today’s monumental action by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) puts a swift end to the importation of monkeys captured from their forest homes around the world to U.S. laboratories. It shows the power of PETA and its supporters, who have moved en masse to urge FWS to do exactly what it has done today to protect sensitive beings from being pushed to extinction by a greedy industry that has prioritized its own profits over sound, sustainable, and ethical science.

Monkeys around the world are safe from violent abduction because FWS now requires a DNA test that has yet to be developed—and could take up to two years to develop—to prove that any monkeys bound for torment and death in U.S. laboratories are bred in captivity. This is what more than 58,000 PETA supporters pushed for after the indictments brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in November of numerous individuals involved in a worldwide monkey-laundering scheme.

FWS has stood up for monkeys who are crammed into small wooden crates and loaded onto planes by the hundreds for a dark, terrifying flight to their deaths in U.S. labs. And the agency has protected the public from the threat of the potential spread of deadly pathogens carried by stressed and immunocompromised monkeys.

PETA urges the experimentation industry to seize this extraordinary opportunity to retool and reimagine laboratory testing and put the U.S. on the vanguard of non-animal, human-relevant testing models by using PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal.

For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.