PETA ‘Monkeys’ to Cause Uproar at Department of the Interior Over 1,000 Primates Held in Limbo

For Immediate Release:
July 21, 2023

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

PETA supporters wearing monkey masks and holding signs bearing photos of the experimentation industry’s primate victims will gather outside the U.S. Department of the Interior on Friday, demanding that Secretary Deb Haaland act on the fate of 1,000 monkeys brought from Cambodia by Charles River Laboratories, possibly illegally, who for months have been held in legal limbo.

When:    Friday, July 21, 12 noon

Where:    Outside the Department of the Interior, 1849 C St. N.W. (between 18^th Street N.W. and Virginia Avenue N.W.), Washington

Charles River couldn’t prove that the long-tailed macaques, an endangered species, hadn’t been abducted from their forest homes instead of bred in captivity, so they were prevented from being sold to experimenters. They’ve since been held at Charles River facilities. PETA is calling on Haaland to release them to a sanctuary and compel the company to pay for their lifetime care.

PETA isn’t the only one concerned with the shady business practices of Charles River, which faces ongoing civil and criminal investigations for possible violations of monkey-importation laws. More than one-third of shareholders voted in favor of a proposal submitted by PETA asking Charles River to disclose the origin of all nonhuman primates imported by the company, an extraordinarily high number for a proposal brought by shareholder activists.

“Every day these young monkeys remain confined, likely alone, in small steel cages at Charles River harms their physical and mental condition,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA is calling on Haaland to move quickly to get these desperate monkeys to a sanctuary and to finance their lifelong care.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.