PETA Uncovers Nefarious Secret Scheme to Build Primate Prisons

The Fight Is On!

If you suddenly discovered that a massive warehouse complex was quietly being set up in your neighborhood to breed and imprison monkeys for experiments, what would you do? Brazoria County, Texas, and Bainbridge, Georgia, residents are doing what anyone would do: fighting like hell to stop it – and PETA is leading both battles against these cruel, polluting, disease-breeding monkey prisons.

Texas Won’t Hold ’Em

In Texas, PETA uncovered a sneaky plan by Charles River Laboratories to build the largest monkey-holding facility in the US, designed to imprison 43,000 primates – each animal an individual and each one a potential environmental and health disaster. The company is one of the largest monkey dealers in the world, and all the animals are used for experiments.

Fully aware that residents wouldn’t welcome these new “neighbors,” Charles River, which is now under federal investigation for possible violations of import laws, quietly set up a shell company – Kandurt LLC – to purchase the land and kept its plans out of public view. But PETA got the dirt on Kandurt and mailed 4,000 letters to area residents, alerting them to the dangers of the proposed facility slated to pop up in their backyard.

The doomed animals would produce some 100,000 gallons of liquid waste every day – a major threat to the federally protected salt marshes, lakes, and coastal prairies that border the property. In addition, monkeys used for experimentation are known to carry and transmit a slew of pathogens and diseases, many transmittable to humans, including herpes B virus, tuberculosis, Ebola-like viruses, simian hemorrhagic fever virus, shigellosis, salmonellosis, Campylobacter, malaria, and dengue. And escapes can and do happen.

Led by PETA’s senior primate scientist, Dr Lisa Jones-Engel, residents railed against Charles River’s plan at a county board of commissioners’ meeting, and commissioners unanimously recommended that state and federal authorities axe the proposal. But the battle isn’t over: The monkey prison could still be constructed if state and federal authorities don’t listen.

The Devils Went Down to Georgia

PETA is leading an all-out effort to quash a similar scheme in Georgia, where the laughably and no doubt deliberately misnamed Safer Human Medicine (SHM) plans to build a facility to import, breed, and warehouse 30,000 monkeys for use in deadly experiments.

The company sought support from local officials but kept it hush-hush that such facilities are not safe whatsoever for humans or monkeys. As PETA’s Dr Jones-Engel testified at a town hall meeting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported a surge in imports of monkeys infected with multiple strains of tuberculosis that can infect humans.

Bewilderingly, city and county agencies had already voted to approve the plan. They even offered SHM a $58 million sweetheart deal packed with tax incentives and other goodies without the required public notice and transparency – violating Georgia’s Open Meetings Act. Something fishy is afoot.

SHM is led by a cadre of former bigwigs from notorious animal-tormenting companies Charles River Laboratories, Covance, and Envigo – which have all faced federal investigations and citations for repeated violations of even basic animal welfare regulations.

PETA pulled back the curtain on SHM CEO Jim Harkness – a former Envigo executive – by releasing damning video footage in which Harkness lies to Georgia residents, trying to cover up what happened at Envigo’s Virginia beagle-breeding warehouse. PETA’s investigation into that hellhole revealed heinous abuse and led to a US Department of Justice investigation, the closure of the facility, and the release of nearly 4,000 beagles for adoption.

Residents were outraged to learn of these deceptions and filed a lawsuit against the local agencies that approved the plan. Soon afterward, the Decatur County Board of Commissioners reversed course, unanimously voting to cancel the $58 million incentive package.

The fights in Texas and Georgia rage on, and PETA will persevere to prevent a single brick from being laid for these cruel, regressive primate prisons.