Tell Feds That Trafficked Monkeys Must Be Sent to Sanctuary Homes

Update (March 14, 2023): We did it! The monkeys did not leave Charles River Laboratories. PETA stationed individuals all day long outside the company’s Houston facility, and none of the 1,000 monkeys who were in danger of being shipped back to Cambodia left. Thousands of PETA supporters e-mailed and called the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, urging the agency to release the animals to a sanctuary instead of allowing them to be sent back to Cambodia to be funneled back into the forest-to-laboratory pipeline. PETA pledges $1 million for the placement of all the monkeys at Born Free USA primate sanctuary in Texas.

Now more than ever, it’s critical that you take action below to keep the pressure on!

Update (March 13, 2023): PETA has learned that notorious monkey trafficker Charles River Laboratories intends to truck about 1,000 endangered, illegally imported long-tailed macaques from Houston to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning (March 14), where they will be put on the next flight back to Cambodia to be returned to the smuggling pipeline for the experimentation industry—apparently with the blessing of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. Department of Justice.

We need your help to stop this travesty and instead send those monkeys to an appropriate sanctuary.

PETA has learned that these are likely the same monkeys FWS prevented from being experimented on in U.S. laboratories because Charles River couldn’t prove that they hadn’t been abducted from their forest homes, instead of bred in captivity.

Please contact FWS at [email protected] to urge officials to send these monkeys to a sanctuary.

According to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a company shareholder briefing, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are investigating animal test giant Charles River Laboratories for possible violations of monkey-importation laws. PETA demands that any monkey victims of illegal activities be released to sanctuaries at the company’s expense and, if the company is found to have illegally imported monkeys, that its import license be revoked.

This follows DOJ indictments of Cambodian officials and nationals for allegedly selling monkeys abducted from their forest home as bred in captivity.

Charles River’s recently released annual shareholder report contained glaring omissions. Among other things, it neglected to divulge its link to the monkey supplier whose employees were indicted for alleged monkey smuggling and laundering. We’ve sent a letter to the company’s CEO, James C. Foster, calling on him to come clean about this.

“Charles River’s shareholders have a right to know that their company is linked to businesses allegedly mixed up in illegally importing wild monkeys. PETA is calling on Charles River to divulge its full role in driving the extinction of macaques worldwide by importing and experimenting on monkeys instead of embracing superior animal-free research.” —Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, PETA primate scientist

Importation of monkeys by Charles River and other U.S. laboratory suppliers are pushing these monkeys to the brink of extinction. Recent reports out of Southeast Asia indicate that there will soon be no wild monkeys left in Cambodia, Laos, or Vietnam.

Charles River has a long history of violating laws and regulations. It has failed to provide suffering animals with pain relief or appropriate medical care, failed to conduct proper veterinary inspections before trucking monkeys across the country, and even baked monkeys alive. It must now be held accountable.

Since these monkeys can’t go back home to their families in nature, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) must now do the next best thing by sending them to reputable sanctuaries and ensuring that Charles River is never allowed to import monkeys again.

Urge the FWS to send the monkeys to sanctuaries and revoke Charles River’s monkey-import permit if it violated the law!

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