Companies Cited After PETA Uncovers Monkeys Illegally Shipped Across the U.S., Destined for Torment in Labs

Update (May 31, 2023): Thanks to PETA, this makes strike two for a shady monkey transport company.

JKL Secure Freight was just cited for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act after we sent evidence to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it had trucked 167 monkeys across the country without proper veterinary exams, a reckless move that could have endangered the public. Last year—also thanks to a PETA complaint—the company was cited for flagrantly ignoring the examination requirement on 14 different occasions.

In this latest lawbreaking episode, infamous monkey dealer Worldwide Primates—where JKL picked up the endangered long-tailed macaques—was also cited for its role in the violation, again thanks to our evidence.

Worldwide Primates has its own claims to infamy. Aside from a long history of violating state, federal, and international laws, it’s also one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the November 2022 U.S. Department of Justice indictments brought against alleged members of a monkey-laundering and -smuggling ring that supplied U.S. laboratories with long-tailed macaques captured in their forest homes in Cambodia and falsely identified as captive-born.

Rounding out the monkey-torment trio is Charles River Laboratories, whose facility in Reno, Nevada, was the final destination for these doomed animals. The company is under federal investigation for its monkey-importation practices.

These USDA citations make it clear that PETA is laser-focused on this reprehensible industry that profits from pain and suffering. Here’s what else is clear: If you violate the law, we’ll catch you.

Read more about the dangers of this industry below, and then please take action: Add your voice to ours by urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ban the importation of monkeys for experimentation.

Originally posted on April 18, 2022. Updated October 14, 2022:

It’s hard to imagine that what we know about the sordid trade in monkeys destined for laboratories could be any worse, but the animal experimentation industry never fails to shock.

PETA has obtained and analyzed documents revealing that in the midst of a global pandemic, nearly 2,000 lab-bound monkeys crisscrossed U.S. highways in apparent violation of federal laws designed to protect animals and the public from dangerous diseases.

The animals were transported in trucks across the country without the proper veterinary inspections required under the federal Animal Welfare Act, which stipulates that a veterinarian must examine all monkeys transported between laboratories and/or breeding facilities within 10 days before shipment. PETA discovered that a rogues’ gallery of monkey tormentors—including Charles River Laboratories, Labcorp Drug Development, the National Institutes of Health, Orient BioResource Center, and PRE Labs Inc.—had violated this law at least 56 times in the past 17 months alone. That amounts to at least 1,881 monkeys who hadn’t been examined within the required time frame but were trucked to and from multiple states, including Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

This revelation is particularly disturbing because right now, laboratories all over the U.S. confine monkeys who carry tuberculosis, West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease, salmonellosis, herpes B, and other diseases that are transmissible to humans—and they’ve been transported via truck, according to documents obtained by PETA. This industry isn’t just contributing to the countless cruel experiments on our fellow primates. It’s also putting the public—whose tax dollars are wasted by the billions on these pointless experiments—at risk.

In light of our alarming findings, PETA urged the USDA to investigate the facilities that flouted the law.

Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far.

CITED by the USDA: JKL ignored this federal requirement on 14 different occasions.

CITED by the USDA: Infamous Charles River Laboratories violated this law when it was transporting doomed monkeys from Reno, Nevada, to the University of Utah. It’s the latest addition to a long and despicable list of instances involving animal abuse and neglect at the company’s facilities. A summary of Charles River’s federal inspection reports reads like a criminal indictment: failure to offer adequate veterinary care, failure to provide suffering animals with pain relief, failure to ensure the psychological well-being of primates, and pathological neglect resulting in horrific deaths of animals.

CITED by the USDA: Experimentation giant Labcorp Drug Development’s violation occurred when it was transporting doomed monkeys from its Wisconsin facility to the notorious Envigo Global Services in Texas. This is the most recent addition to a long and revolting list of instances involving animal abuse and neglect at its facilities. In September 2022, the USDA fined Labcorp $3,375 for violations that included inadequate veterinary care, personnel incompetence, and careless handling of animals. In November 2021, the USDA cited Labcorp for improper handling after staff fractured the arm of a monkey. The company’s history of violations stretches back years. In 2005, PETA documented that workers punched, slapped, and violently shook monkeys at Labcorp’s now-closed facility in Virginia when the company was called Covance. Labcorp should stop tormenting monkeys altogether, but at a minimum, it must abide by the law. So as a shareholder, PETA is pressing the company to be honest about its role in the voracious primate experimentation industry. We recently filed a shareholder resolution calling on Labcorp to report to shareholders annually on its efforts to prevent the transport of monkeys who have not received proper veterinary exams.

PETA expects to see more citations for other companies named in our complaint and will continue to monitor these shady transport companies.

Just how close to disaster these shipments can bring us was starkly demonstrated earlier this year when a collision between a dump truck and a trailer hauling 100 laboratory-bound monkeys made headlines after photos of crates of monkeys strewn across a Pennsylvania highway went viral.

Three monkeys escaped and were shot on orders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which had determined that they posed a public health risk. The long-tailed macaques, who came from Mauritius, had arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York that morning and had not yet been quarantined or tested for any pathogens that could endanger humans. Witnesses say the crates that held the animals had no labels that warned of potential danger or even indicated their contents. We filed multiple complaints with the USDA regarding the transport company responsible for this tragedy, which has since announced that it’s gone out of business.

How YOU Can Help Our Fellow Primates

Please add your voice to ours by urging the CDC to ban the importation of monkeys for experimentation. Tell the agency to shut down the monkey-abduction pipeline: