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Update (February 4, 2025): The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Standing Committee today chose to delay a decision on its Secretariat’s recommendation to suspend the corrupt trade of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia. Today’s disgraceful postponement is a step closer to extinction for these monkeys, and it proves that backroom deals and industry influence over U.S. and international officials hold sway over what should be an independent, science-driven process. Cambodia was caught red-handed falsifying export paperwork and laundering tens of thousands of wild-caught monkeys into the laboratory supply chain. There is no proof that anything has changed. By ignoring mountains of evidence from a five-year undercover investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and data analyses by PETA, this international body is choosing to safeguard profiteering corporations like Charles River Laboratories rather than the animals they are charged with protecting.
But Canada can still act. Add your voice to ours by taking action below to urge Canadian officials to immediately shut down all monkey imports from Cambodia.
Click here for campaign updates.
Original post:
Canadian officials haven’t been paying attention. The U.S. has suspended all shipments of monkeys from Cambodia following indictments by the U.S. Department of Justice against Cambodian government officials and nationals for allegedly abducting monkeys from their forest homes but claiming they were born in captivity so they could sell them to experimenters around the world.
But the Cambodian monkey trade is booming in Canada—and we need your help to shut it down.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is allowing the importation of hundreds—possibly thousands—of endangered long-tailed macaques from Cambodia for use in laboratories. In August 2024, PETA and the Spanish animal protection group Abolición Vivisección exposed that Charles River Laboratories and Polish airline SkyTaxi had illegally imported—for the third time—hundreds of endangered monkeys into Canada for use in cruel and deadly experiments. The Canadian Transportation Agency seems to think that flouting international regulations is no big deal. It took action, a good step, but apparently only by doing the bare minimum: fining the airline a paltry $7,500, amounting to only $4 per monkey illegally transported. (We’ve asked the Canadian CITES Management Authority and the CITES Secretariat in Geneva to investigate whether Charles River and SkyTaxi knowingly provided false information on documents that accompanied the shipments.)
Were these monkeys the victims of smuggling rings, ripped from their families and homes and sold illegally? It’s impossible for us—and Canadian officials—to know. It’s a gamble that U.S. officials are now unwilling to take: They’ve shut down all monkey shipments from Cambodia until importers can prove the origin of these animals.
Importing monkeys also poses a grave and potentially fatal public health risk. Monkeys—who are already stressed from their capture or from the conditions in filthy, severely crowded breeding facilities—are loaded into crates for days-long travel and exposed to numerous pathogens that they could carry into Canada.
Tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease that’s readily transmitted between monkeys and humans, is emerging in primate colonies globally. PETA uncovered an outbreak at a Michigan laboratory that houses imported monkeys, and two humans are now undergoing treatment. Monkeys from Cambodia have also been the source of a pathogen so deadly that the U.S. classifies it as a bioterrorism agent.
Going Extinct
Long-tailed macaques in Cambodia and elsewhere in Asia have been driven to the brink of extinction, in large part due to the demand from laboratories and suppliers like Charles River, which has facilities in Canada. Charles River is under U.S. federal civil and criminal investigation for possible violations of monkey-importation laws.
Please TAKE ACTION by telling Canadian officials to follow the U.S.’ lead and immediately shut down the monkey-importation trade in Canada.