Feds Cite Laboratory Transporter After Hundreds of Monkeys Suffer in Sweltering Heat: PETA Statement
For Immediate Release:
September 11, 2026
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Please see the following statement from PETA Chief Science Advisor Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel regarding a new citation issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against trucking company JKL Secure Freight for violating the Animal Welfare Act after hundreds of long-tailed macaques, just imported from Cambodia, were transported in inadequately air-conditioned trucks during a heatwave from Dulles International Airport to a laboratory in Frederick, Maryland, likely owned and operated by Charles River Laboratories. Three trucks reached 93 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit, exceeding the required range of 45 to 85 degrees, while outdoor temperatures climbed to 99 degrees:
As a record-breaking heat dome scorched the Mid-Atlantic, hundreds of monkeys suffered the sweltering heat in crates in the back of trucks, compounding the misery they’d just endured on a grueling 22-hour flight from Cambodia to the U.S. This is the handiwork of JKL Secure Freight and marks the company’s fourth violation of minimum animal welfare laws this year alone and its 12th since 2022—yet it remains a go-to transporter used by suppliers of monkeys to laboratories. Cambodia is a known source of dangerous infectious diseases, transmissible from monkeys to humans, and JKL Secure Freight turned an already risky international shipment into an animal welfare failure. PETA urges the public to ask their representatives to co-sponsor the bipartisan PRIMATE Act, which would end the importation of monkeys for use in experiments and help shut down the pipeline that threatens human health and torments monkeys from the moment they are captured abroad, through the stress of transport, and in their deaths in laboratories.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
