Charles River’s Dangerous Monkey Violations Called Out by PETA in Shareholder Resolution

For Immediate Release:
November 28, 2022

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

PETA wants notorious animal testing giant Charles River Laboratories to be honest about its role in the voracious primate experimentation industry and today has filed a shareholder resolution formally requesting more transparency.

PETA is calling on Charles River to report on the species, country of origin, and number of monkeys it imports into the U.S. and to report any measures it takes to mitigate its impact on monkeys’ dwindling wild populations. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted two Cambodian officials and several individuals for allegedly bringing monkeys into the U.S. illegally.

PETA’s resolution also calls on the locally based company to report to shareholders annually on its efforts to prevent the transporting of monkeys without proper veterinary exams.

Charles River moves thousands of monkeys every year on U.S. highways, often over thousands of miles. Federal law requires that a veterinarian examine monkeys transported across state lines within 10 days prior to shipment. But Charles River transported monkeys from its Reno, Nevada, facility to the University of Utah in July 2022 without the required inspections, resulting in a citation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in response to a complaint filed by PETA. Failure to conduct timely veterinary inspections jeopardizes public health and safety, as monkeys can carry tuberculosis, deadly diarrheal pathogens, West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease, herpes B, and other diseases that can be transmitted to humans.

“PETA is calling on Charles River to be accountable to shareholders for its sloppy practices and above-the-law mentality,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Charles River should stop tormenting monkeys altogether, but at a minimum, it must abide by the law.”

Charles River is one of the largest importers of monkeys into the U.S., bringing in thousands of monkeys each year from Southeast Asia and Mauritius. The majority of these primates are long-tailed macaques, which the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies as “endangered.” The international trade in long-tailed macaques is steeped in violence, and widespread laundering of wild-caught animals as captive-bred is evident in recent indictments brought by the DOJ.

During fiscal years 2019 to 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 407 shipments brought 92,430 monkeys to the U.S. from other countries.

PETA is filing a similar shareholder resolution with Laboratory Corporation of America, which owns Covance. Charles River and Covance have the dubious distinction of topping PETA’s “Dirty Dozen,” which names the 12 worst CEOs for animals in laboratories.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that monkeys are still being used in pharmaceutical studies, even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration admits that 95% of all new drugs that test safe and effective in animals are either unsafe or ineffective in humans. PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal provides a strategy for replacing animals with modern, human-relevant research methods.

PETA shareholder questions are available upon request. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.