An Unquarantined, Laboratory-Bound Monkey Vanished for Five Days
PETA has learned from a whistleblower that a laboratory-bound monkey was trapped in a biohazard waste dumpster for five days, undetected and alone, without food or water. This is the animal testing industry.
The young monkey had just endured a 28-hour flight from the other side of the world in a wooden shipping crate.
What should have happened—according to the rules of the archaic and vile animal-experimentation system—was that the monkey be moved from the wooden crate into a small metal cage at the facility for CDC-mandated quarantine. Instead, according to the whistleblower, the monkey, still inside their crate, was accidentally placed alive into a biohazard trash dumpster.
The monkey remained trapped in the dumpster for days, undetected and alone, without food or water. The dumpster was then picked up and trucked two hours away to Stericycle, a waste facility in Miami.
No one knew the monkey was missing. Clearly, no one checked. There was no accounting, no one ticked a box, and apparently no census was ever taken while a living being was trapped in a dumpster, without food and water—FOR FIVE DAYS.
The dumpster was opened on the fifth day at the waste facility, freeing the monkey, who escaped before being captured and returned to the importer’s site, their fate unknown.
The mind-boggling enormity of this incompetence makes it difficult to list the number of federal, state, and local violations, but there are plenty. PETA is demanding investigations by numerous federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
How … Just, How?
Here is the timeline of events of the laboratory-bound monkey’s horrid journey:
- Tuesday, January 27
A SkyTaxi plane transported a shipment of monkeys from Mauritius to Miami. The flight included two layovers and lasted 28 hours and 35 minutes. - January 27 (arrival in Miami)
The monkeys were loaded into trucks and driven to a facility operated by BC US LLC in Immokalee, Florida, about two hours northwest of Miami. - January 27–28
BC US staff transferred monkeys into quarantine cages and discarded the wooden shipping crates into a medical waste dumpster. One monkey was unknowingly left inside a crate, trapped amongst biohazardous materials. - Friday, January 30
A biohazard waste truck collected the dumpster and transported it back to a facility in Miami. - January 30–February 1 (weekend)
The dumpster remained at the waste facility, with the monkey still trapped inside. - Monday, February 2
The dumpster was unloaded, allowing the monkey to escape.
Soon afterward, the monkey was caught and returned to the importer’s facility. If BC US had done nothing more than count the monkeys and place each one into an individual metal cage to begin CDC-mandated quarantine, this never would have happened—yet there is no evidence they do even that.
PETA knows about this one incident because of a whistleblower, but who knows how many other laboratory-bound monkeys have also been “lost” because of this no-account, lackadaisical callousness? And how many people have been exposed to potentially dangerous pathogens, since none of these monkeys have yet cleared mandatory quarantine?
This is just the latest in the longest, saddest laundry list of things wrong with animal testing. It shows the malice, incompetence, and danger that runs through the cruel monkey-importation pipeline, rooted in greed and serving only to prop up the dying animal-experimentation industry.
One Way to Help Stop Animal Testing
Please TAKE ACTION and urge the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to shut down this monkey-abduction forest-to-laboratory pipeline.
