Victory! Avoyelles Parish School Board to Evict Dangerous Monkey Warehouse

Update (November 2, 2022): It seems that a notorious transport company that trucks monkeys to laboratories across the U.S. continues to have an issue with obeying the law.

Here’s the evidence we’ve uncovered regarding Quebedeaux’s Transport’s latest legal fiasco.

A couple of months ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) canceled Quebedeaux’s Transport’s license to transport animals. The company was also issued an out-of-service order by the U.S. Department of Transportation because it refused to undergo a safety audit. (That’s never a good sign.)

Despite these actions, documents reveal that Quebedeaux’s Transport recently hauled four elderly long-tailed macaques, a species now declared endangered, from a breeding operation in Florida to Arizona State University. The move constitutes a serious violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act and comes on the heels of a vote against the company’s proposed monkey-quarantine facility and its subsequent eviction proceedings. (See below for more details.)

And let’s not forget this reckless company’s most sordid claim to fame: Earlier this year, a Quebedeaux’s Transport truck hauling a trailer containing 100 long-tailed macaques crashed on a Pennsylvania highway. Three monkeys escaped and were shot and killed.

PETA is calling on the USDA to launch an immediate investigation into Quebedeaux’s Transport as well as the breeding facility in Florida and Arizona State University for their roles in unlawfully transporting the elderly monkeys.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to turn a blind eye to the threats that the monkey-importation industry poses to both animals and the public. Tell the agency to shut down the monkey-abduction pipeline.

Originally published on July 10, 2022. Updated on September 29, 2022:

We’ve got great news! After we learned that Jeffrey Quebedeaux—whose transport company was behind the infamous truck crash earlier this year involving 100 laboratory-bound monkeys—was building a monkey prison in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, we shared our concerns with the local school board, which owns the land. We pointed out the dangers that would be posed to monkeys and humans by such a facility.

The school board just voted to keep Quebedeaux’s monkey business out of town and has started eviction proceedings to terminate his lease and collect past-due rent.

Here’s How We Got Wind of This Prison

PETA uncovered documents that Quebedeaux’s Transport, the company behind a high-profile monkey transport crash on January 21, 2022, involving a truck transporting 100 monkeys across several states, was attempting to remodel an abandoned human prison to create one for monkeys—even though state officials opposed the plan. It was bad news for monkeys and for public health.

According to records obtained by PETA, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries sent a letter urging the company’s owner, Jeffrey Quebedeaux, to cease plans to build this warehouse meant to imprison hundreds of monkeys—mostly long-tailed macaques, who have been driven to the brink of extinction by experimenters—slated for use in experiments. If the project had gone through, the facility would have apparently violated state laws prohibiting possession of primates and would have risked the spread of diseases.

PETA is calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to block Quebedeaux and his businesses from importing, quarantining, or holding primates. We pointed out that monkeys can carry tuberculosis, West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease, simian immunodeficiency virus, herpes B, hepatitis, and other pathogens and diseases that can spread to humans.

“This proposed prison would be miserable for monkeys warehoused before being sent to laboratories, and it poses an alarming health threat for humans in the community. Jeffrey Quebedeaux seems to be willfully ignoring the law, which should be a red flag to the CDC that his company shouldn’t be trusted to warehouse primates, particularly those who are coming directly from overseas with unknown health histories. PETA is urging the agency to do all it can to stop Quebedeaux’s cruel and dangerous exploits.”

—PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo

The crash in Pennsylvania scattered dozens of wooden crates holding monkeys across the highway. This disaster followed a long and terrifying flight for the monkeys from Mauritius, during which they were confined to the plane’s cargo hold. The long-tailed macaques had arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York that morning and had not yet been quarantined or tested for any pathogens that could endanger humans. Witnesses say that the crates bore no labels warning of potential danger or even indicating that they held monkeys. Three monkeys who escaped and desperately tried to find a safe place in the frigid weather were shot and killed. One woman who tried to help was exposed to monkey saliva and had to undergo antiviral and rabies prevention treatment.

That crash wasn’t the company’s first, either: Quebedeaux Transport was also involved in a 2020 incident in New Jersey in which a truck hauling monkeys caught fire. Jeffrey Quebedeaux’s previous transportation company, Stone Oaks Farm and Transports, was also given an official warning letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations after the death of a chimpanzee it was hauling to a laboratory.

Take Action for Monkeys Used in Experiments

Laboratory experimenters demand monkeys by the tens of thousands each year, supporting a violent, greedy, and secretive industry that’s fueling the illicit trade in monkeys. Whether abducted from their forest homes or bred on factory farms in Asia and Mauritius, monkeys in this cloak-and-dagger industry are moved from far-flung areas around the globe, endangering native monkey populations and an unsuspecting U.S. public along the way.

PETA is now pulling back the curtain on this clandestine, nasty world in which monkeys are traded for cash, its operatives cloak themselves in secrecy, and the dangers to humans are ignored.

Please take a minute to TAKE ACTION today by adding your voice in opposition to the CDC’s importation of monkeys for laboratory experimentation. Tell the agency to shut down the monkey-abduction pipeline.