African Airline Used by Alleged Monkey-Smuggling Ring Ships Animals to Their Deaths

PETA has uncovered evidence that Africa’s largest airline, Ethiopian Airlines, has shipped thousands of endangered monkeys halfway around the world for use in cruel and deadly experiments.

The airline, which trial evidence revealed has shipped monkeys who were allegedly smuggled and laundered, reportedly recently flew 250 endangered long-tailed macaques from Ethiopia to the U.S. on a grueling journey, even though it previously told PETA that shipping monkeys was against company policy. The monkeys were first shipped to Ethiopia from the East African nation of Mauritius on a different airline.

Please take action below to urge Ethiopian Airlines to join nearly every other major airline in the world by refusing to ship sensitive beings to laboratories.

7,000-Plus Miles of Misery

Monkeys transported to laboratories are packed into tiny wooden shipping crates and forced to sit in their own feces, urine, and blood for hours-long journeys. The terrified and likely sick animals are ultimately trucked to laboratories, where they’re deprived of food and water, mutilated, poisoned, forcibly immobilized in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, psychologically tormented, used in a battery of other excruciating experiments, and ultimately killed.

Frequent Flyer Violator

In July 2023, Ethiopian Airlines was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for giving a ground crew improper feeding and watering instruction for 336 monkeys crammed inside crates in a cargo hold for the 10,000 miles from Mauritius to Georgia. After the monkeys were finally unloaded from the plane, they spent 95 minutes on the tarmac without shade in 85-degree heat. The crates of monkeys were then roughly handled as ground-crew workers packed them into trailers for transport to laboratories, causing further distress and likely physical harm.

The USDA also cited the airline in January 2023 for its failing to ensure that its intermediate handler maintained copies of health certificates for 584 monkeys imported into the U.S. The USDA appears to have withdrawn that citation.

Numerous Ethiopian Airlines shipments have included monkeys taken from Mauritius, a small island where tuberculosis outbreaks on monkey-breeding farms are well documented. These shipments pose an imminent threat to public health because tuberculosis is highly infectious and can be transmitted from monkeys to humans.

Abducted From the Wild?

Federal authorities have alleged that a Southeast Asian black market monkey-smuggling ring abducts wild-caught monkeys from their natural habitat and falsely labels them as “captive-bred” before they’re flown to the U.S.

A federal trial revealed that Ethiopian Airlines flew hundreds of these allegedly laundered monkeys from Cambodia into the hands of U.S. laboratory supplier Worldwide Primates.

Help Ground All Monkey Shipments

Ethiopian Airlines’ monkey shipments drain forests of endangered monkeys, threaten public health and safety, and fuel the insatiable animal experimentation industry.

Please take action today to urge it to stop shipping monkeys to laboratories for use in cruel and deadly experiments.

Send polite comments to:

Mesfin Tasew Bekele, CEO
Ethiopian Airlines
[email protected]

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