Canada Fines Airline for Illegally Importing Endangered Monkeys: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel regarding the Canadian Transportation Agency’s decision to fine Poland-based SkyTaxi $7,500 for three illegal shipments of globally endangered long-tailed macaques from Cambodia for Charles River Laboratories The monkeys, who were imported to be used in the experimentation industry, have an estimated value of at least $40 million. The fine follows complaints from PETA, Spanish animal protection organization Abolición Vivisección, and Animal Alliance Canada:

Once again, Charles River Laboratories is embroiled in controversy over the illegal importation of monkeys—last year it was in the U.S. and this year it’s in Canada. The company’s hired airline, SkyTaxi, carried tiny wooden crates stuffed with 1,980 long-tailed macaques on three flights from Cambodia to Montréal in violation of Canadian law. Charles River apparently gets a free pass, and SkyTaxi’s anemic fine represents a meager .02% of the amount Charles River will make selling these sensitive monkeys into short lives of terror and torment in pointless laboratory experiments. PETA urges Canadian authorities to ban both Charles River and SkyTaxi from bringing more macaques into the country and calls on Canadian CITES officials to seize the monkeys. PETA is also asking international regulators to investigate Charles River to determine whether it knowingly falsified documents that accompanied the shipments.

Background

After the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service denied entry to 1,269 monkeys Charles River imported into the U.S. from Cambodia, the company pivoted to Canada and has imported more than 6,000 long-tailed macaques into the country in the past 19 months.

The U.S. agency is also investigating a Charles River shipment of hundreds of monkeys flown by SkyTaxi into Houston. Since 2021, at least six cases of Burkholderia pseudomallei—a bacteria so deadly that it’s classified as a bioterrorism agent—have been found in macaques imported into the U.S. from Cambodia.

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.