PETA Calls on Feds to Investigate Companies Connected to Mississippi Truck Crash
Update (November 7, 2025): PETA is asking 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 monkeys, while civilians shot and killed two others. The last was reportedly tranquilized after eight days on the run.
The violent crash left the trailer and crates severely damaged. Any monkeys still in crates were almost certainly injured. But there’s no indication they received the required evaluations or veterinary care.
Shooting animals to death violates USDA-approved euthanasia guidelines and transporting animals in inadequately secured crates and leaving them in non-temperature-controlled environments both violate the federal Animal Welfare Act.
PETA also found:
- The monkeys were en route to the laboratory BIOQUAL in Rockville, Maryland, which has violated the federal Animal Welfare Act at least 16 times since 2014. The testing laboratory was once called SEMA, but changed its name after a visit by Dr. Jane Goodall uncovered chimpanzees, including infants, confined in appalling conditions in individual cages.
- Wildlife Transportation Facilitators transported the monkeys. Last year, the company trucked four elderly monkeys from New York University across the country to the Washington National Primate Research Center over three days. One monkey was in such poor condition upon arrival that he was immediately euthanized.
- Tulane University, where 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 owned the primates. It 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.”
See below for ways to help.
When a truck carrying rhesus macaques from the Tulane National Primate Research Center overturned in Mississippi, chaos erupted. Several monkeys bolted for their lives—likely terrified, confused, and desperate for freedom. According to reports, authorities shot to death five escaped monkeys, and three remain on the loose. Take a look:
This disaster isn’t just a warning—it’s a wake-up call. Monkeys used in laboratories can carry deadly diseases that can spread to humans, including tuberculosis. Tulane’s National Primate Research Center is rife with documented disease outbreaks, including a bioterrorism-level bacterium carried by monkeys that can be shed into the environment.
PETA is calling on authorities to demand full necropsies and veterinary records for the monkeys killed and to make the results public, so communities for once will know the truth about the risks of sending animals to crisscross U.S. highways in secret shipments.
Now, with monkeys escaping into unprotected, populated areas, the monkey experimentation industry’s reckless actions have once again put public safety on the line. It also isn’t an isolated incident: Monkeys have scrambled for freedom in Pennsylvania—from another truck crash—and in South Carolina. These events are exactly the sparks that could ignite the next pandemic.
The monkey experimentation industry is a cruel, greedy business that puts everyone at risk. Unmarked trucks haul these sensitive, social animals around the country like disposable cargo, all so experimenters can keep their money machine running. In laboratories, experimenters infect monkeys with deadly viruses, drill implants into their heads, strap them into restraint chairs for hours on end, and torment them in other painful ways— and the vast majority of these tests yield no human-relevant results or treatments, squandering valuable time, resources, and money while inflicting immense suffering.
Prevent a Public Health Disaster—Take Action for Monkeys
The monkeys who escaped spent their brief moments of freedom before death in panic and fear. Those who do make it to laboratories spend their miserable lives confined to cages, strapped in restraint devices, or on sterile operating tables—only for experimenters to ultimately kill them. If you’re in the U.S., help us shut down the seven National Primate Research Centers and end this cruel system.
And anyone, no matter where you live, can urge the CDC to shut down the monkey-abduction pipeline.
