Companies Involved in Monkey Truck Crash Have History of Animal Welfare Violations, PETA Reveals

For Immediate Release:
November 7, 2025

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

In a complaint filed today, PETA asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to investigate the companies involved in the October 28 truck crash that led to the escape of eight adult rhesus macaque monkeys in Jasper County, Mississippi.

Police gunned down five of the eight monkeys, civilians shot and killed two others, and the last was located after eight days and reportedly tranquilized. PETA’s complaint points out that given the damage to the trailer and crates because of the violence of the crash, monkeys left in the crates were almost certainly injured—yet there’s no indication they were promptly evaluated or provided with veterinary care, as required. Shooting animals to death is also a violation of USDA-approved euthanasia protocols, and transporting animals in inadequately secured crates and leaving them in non-temperature-controlled environments are both violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Records obtained by PETA also reveal:

• The monkeys were destined for the laboratory BIOQUAL in Rockville, Maryland, which violated the federal Animal Welfare Act at least 16 times since 2014. The testing laboratory was once known as SEMA and changed its name following a visit by Dr. Jane Goodall, which uncovered chimpanzees, including infants, confined in appalling conditions in individual cages. 

• The monkeys were transported by Wildlife Transportation Facilitators, a company that last year trucked four elderly monkeys from New York University across the country to the Washington National Primate Research Center over a three-day period. One of the monkeys was in such poor condition upon arrival that he was immediately euthanized.

• Tulane University, from which the monkeys originated, has a long history of federal animal welfare violations, including failing to protect monkeys from frigid weather, unsafe housing, and filthy enclosures.

• Monkey dealer PreLabs—which acknowledged that it owned the primates involved in the crash—was previously cited for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act after an inspector found a rhesus macaque with “approximately 90% hair loss on her chest, abdomen, legs, and arms.”

“Monkeys who were almost certainly born at a national primate center paid for by taxpayers, survived that horror only to end up shot dead on the side of a highway,” says PETA Senior Science Advisor on Primate Experimentation, Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “No federally regulated entity should get away with evading accountability for endangering animals or the public, and PETA demands that the USDA investigate and issue penalties where warranted.”

The records obtained by PETA include an alarming Certificate of Veterinary Inspection showing that the monkeys in the truck each had only a single tuberculosis skin test—an outdated and unreliable screening method incapable of detecting many latent infections. The threat of hauling tuberculosis-infected monkeys, who may also harbor pathogens for which they haven’t been tested, to laboratories around the country is well documented.

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.