SkyTaxi Is Illegally Flying Monkeys to Their Deaths for Charles River—Tell It to Stop

PETA has discovered that Poland-based SkyTaxi, a nearly unknown speck of a cargo airline, has become one of the only air carriers in the world willing to make a quick buck shuttling endangered monkeys around the globe to their eventual torment and death in laboratories. Your help is needed to stop it.

We learned from a whistleblower that SkyTaxi flew more than 500 endangered, long-tailed macaque monkeys to the U.S.—they arrived on June 28 after a 26-hour flight from Vietnam. The smell from their crates was overpowering, and the whistleblower said they were “leaky,” likely with feces and urine, which can contain deadly pathogens that can infect humans, during removal from the plane.

PETA urged numerous federal agencies to inspect the shipment. None were there, the whistleblower said, and the process was chaotic.

The shipment was the second one of monkeys back-to-back on that same plane, which had flown monkeys from Mauritius to Houston six days earlier. Without proper cleaning or disinfecting, the plane took off less than 24 hours later, headed for Vietnam. We’re urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate.

Facilities in Mauritius and Vietnam have experienced multiple outbreaks of highly contagious tuberculosis, which can spread to humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert after several types of pathogens were found in shipments of imported monkeys.

Most of SkyTaxi’s monkey-transport flights have reportedly been on behalf of monkey killer Charles River Laboratories, which is under civil and criminal investigation by U.S. feds for alleged illegal importation of the animals from Cambodia.

PETA and our partners have written two letters to SkyTaxi CEO Greg Rybczynski, alerting him to the many dangers of monkey transport. A PETA supporter even hand-delivered another letter to SkyTaxi’s headquarters in Poland.

Pressure from PETA supporters like you has driven nearly every air carrier on the planet away from this bloody business. We’re asking that you help monkeys again: Please urge SkyTaxi to stop flying these animals to their deaths.

You can do so by sending polite comments to:

Greg Rybczynski, CEO
SkyTaxi
[email protected]

Please feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.