Monkeys Destined for Charles River Labs Arrive at Dulles in Filthy, Leaky Crates; PETA Files Federal Complaint
For Immediate Release:
July 17, 2024
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
In a letter sent today, PETA is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate credible whistleblower reports that more than 500 endangered long-tailed macaque monkeys destined for Charles River Laboratories arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport in leaky, foul-smelling crates after they were crammed into an improperly sanitized cargo hold for a grueling, 26-hour flight from Vietnam via SkyTaxi, a Polish charter airline.
Records reveal that the same SkyTaxi plane had arrived in Houston just days earlier carrying monkeys from Mauritius—where outbreaks of highly infectious diseases including tuberculosis are frequently reported at monkey-breeding facilities. The whistleblower said that the plane wasn’t properly cleaned between flights—posing a serious health risk for both the monkeys and the airport staff who came into contact with the leaking crates—and that the smell emanating from the cargo hold was overwhelming.
“Charles River Laboratories is scraping the bottom of the barrel by using SkyTaxi to fly monkeys from facilities in Vietnam and Mauritius where tuberculosis and other deadly pathogens continue to circulate,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “There are inevitable and dangerous consequences for humans and primates when monkeys are boxed up overseas and sent around the world with their blood, feces, and urine leaking into cargo planes.”
A response to PETA’s public records request revealed that SkyTaxi is apparently already wrapped up in an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service related to an earlier shipment of long-tailed macaques from the Noveprim facility in Mauritius to Charles River Laboratories in Houston. Charles River, which is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for violations of the Endangered Species and Lacey acts, has resorted to using small air carriers like SkyTaxi because nearly every major airline in the world refuses to transport monkeys to laboratories.
Last month, SkyTaxi was cited for three violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act following a shipment of 194 dogs and 99 cats from Afghanistan to Virginia. According to the inspection report, none of the wooden crates the animals were confined to had proper ventilation and several of the animals didn’t have adequate access to food or water. One of the poorly built crates that held a dog even began to fall apart when workers attempted to move it.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
