Estafeta Carga Aérea Pledges Not to Transport Primates to Laboratories

After Hearing From PETA, Airline Joins Other Top Carriers in Refusing to Ship Monkeys to Be Tormented in Experiments

For Immediate Release:
October 27, 2016

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

After PETA contacted Mexico City–based Estafeta Carga Aérea, the airline enacted a policy never to transport nonhuman primates destined for laboratory experiments. In a letter to PETA, company representative Christian F. Burns said that Estafeta Carga Aérea is “on board” with pledging never to participate in the deadly shipments.

“PETA applauds Estafeta Carga Aérea for joining nearly every major airline in the world in cutting off the supply of monkeys to laboratories, where they would be mutilated, poisoned, and killed in cruel experiments,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Experiments on monkeys are barbaric and bad science—they must end.”

Numerous major airlines have full or partial policies against transporting all species of animals for experimentation. Among the International Air Transport Association’s list of the world’s 10 largest cargo carriers, FedEx, UPS, Cathay Pacific, Korean Airlines, and EVA Air prohibit any shipment of animals for experiments, and Lufthansa won’t ship cats, dogs, or primates to laboratories.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—notes that every year, thousands of nonhuman primates are transported to be imprisoned in laboratories and tormented in experiments. Some are bred in captivity on cramped, squalid monkey farms, while others are taken from their families in their natural homes. They’re crammed into small wooden crates, transported in the dark cargo holds of planes for as long as 30 hours, and then trucked to facilities to be cut open, poisoned, crippled, addicted to drugs, shocked, and killed.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.