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A sprawling, old-growth oak forest surrounded by rich floodplains may soon be devastated if Charles River Laboratories is allowed to go forward with its plan to turn 500 acres of ecologically sensitive Brazoria County, Texas, wetlands into a concrete warehouse to store, breed, and sell monkeys for use in gruesome laboratory tests. Charles River tried to keep it a secret and even set up a new company, incorporated in March as Kandurt LLC, but PETA found out.
Perhaps Charles River hoped to fly under the feds’ radar—the company is already under federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged illegalities in importing monkeys from Asia into the U.S for sale to laboratories.
Now we’ve joined with local residents to prevent the world’s largest breeder of animals for experimentation from tormenting even more monkeys, turning a haven for local wildlife into a wasteland, and potentially endangering the health and safety of the community in Brazoria County.
In addition to the hundreds of monkeys Charles River would harm inside the facility, there are other serious issues.
Breeding Ground for the Next Pandemic?
Monkeys imported into the U.S. by Charles River have carried with them deadly diseases that can spread to humans and other animals, and the risk for new, unidentified viruses is heightened by the international monkey trade.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that imported primates significantly threaten public health. Two monkey species in particular, long-tailed and rhesus macaques, have the greatest potential to transmit diseases. One or both species would be housed at Charles River’s proposed facility.
PETA has obtained CDC documents showing that in recent years, there’s been a significant uptick in the arrival in the U.S. of monkeys infected with tuberculosis, malaria, and other deadly diseases. Deadly pathogens and diseases including herpes B virus, Ebola-like viruses, tuberculosis, and others that monkeys pick up overseas can spread to humans and other animals in Texas.
Charles River is supposed to screen for these pathogens, but they often go undetected. As if this weren’t dangerous enough, PETA also documented that the company has failed to conduct required disease-preventing exams before trucking monkeys across the country. In response to our evidence, the feds cited the company.
Polluting the Cradle of Texas
The facility is proposed to occupy environmentally sensitive land sandwiched between public conservation areas. It could wipe out regional floodplains, nature’s defense against floods, making storm impacts more severe and potentially endangering lives.
Charles River has a track record of environmental hostility. It tried setting up breeding facilities in the Florida Keys, and the result was ecological disaster, including pollution of public waters and serious erosion of the shoreline.
The proposed Texas facility would also generate mountains of biological waste and introduce monkey saliva, blood, and other bodily fluids potentially infected with pathogens into the environment. Wildlife, including birds and insects, could consume the contaminated soil and water, further increasing the risk of passing foreign parasites, viruses, and bacteria to humans. Mosquitos feeding in the area could transmit malaria or other diseases between the monkeys and humans. And large colonies of captive monkeys have been implicated in local parasite transmission cycles for Chagas disease.
Inevitable Monkey Escapes
Monkeys escape from laboratories. It’s alarmingly common.
In 2018, four baboons escaped from San Antonio’s Texas Biomedical Research Institute and were spotted by drivers on the highway. Earlier, several chimpanzees escaped from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Bastrop, Texas.
Here are some other cases:
- A monkey who escaped from Georgia’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center was never found.
- Two dozen monkeys found refuge in the local forest after escaping Louisiana’s Tulane National Primate Research Center.
- Nine monkeys believed to be infected with herpes B escaped from the Oregon National Primate Research Center, with one evading capture for three days.
- A truck carrying 100 monkeys crashed on a Pennsylvania highway in 2022, allowing several monkeys to escape into the nearby woods, exposing nearby humans to the bodily fluids of the recently imported animals.
It’s not a question of if monkeys would escape from Charles River’s proposed facility but when.
The Worst of the Worst
Animal testing giant Charles River has an appalling record of animal abuse. It has been cited by federal authorities on numerous occasions for failing to provide even the most basic animal protections required by law, including for denying veterinary care and pain relief.
Blatant neglect has led to abominable deaths. The company baked 32 monkeys to death after no one noticed that a thermostat had malfunctioned at its Nevada facility.
The profit-focused Charles River also contributes to the decimation of monkey populations in their natural homes, endangering the long-tailed macaque species. These monkeys are snatched from their homes, confined to squalid breeding farms, locked in small wooden crates, and shipped to the U.S. before they’re poisoned, cut up, and killed in gruesome laboratory experiments.
Monkeys Don’t Belong in Brazoria County
Charles River is already the top importer of long-tailed macaques into the U.S., and it also experiments on them, having used 16,000 in 2022 alone. Rather than expanding, the company should be switching to more effective animal-free test methods.
PETA has contacted Brazoria County commissioners urging them to deny Charles River’s request to build this disruptive and dangerous facility. Please join us in taking action by contacting your commissioners today.