Fish & Wildlife Placates Animal Experimenters, Fails Monkeys: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
October 7, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel regarding the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s decision to deny two petitions for rulemaking (here and here) from prominent primate scientists, including Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Birutė Galdikas, and more than 30 wildlife, scientific, and animal protection organizations from around the world with decades of expertise in the wildlife trade, monkey ecology, and conservation to grant protections under the U.S. Endangered Species Act to two species of monkeys before they’re wiped off the planet by the insatiable animal experimentation industry.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service took more than 500 days to make a decision and still ignored the fact that dozens of the world’s leading primate scientists presented data from hundreds of scientists who have been working for decades in the natural habitats of these monkeys. The agency also disregarded the fact that the International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed these species as endangered, a listing that still stands. Fish & Wildlife chose to placate the animal experimentation industry, rather than protecting these two species, whose populations are being decimated by that very industry. In their zeal to get their hands on the monkeys, importers and experimenters are ignoring not only that the primate importation pipeline brings public health risks but also that soon there will be no more of these animals to snatch from their homes and torment in what has proved to be failed and unethical experiments. In today’s twisted scientific world, the goal for experimenters is to publish, while the monkey importers just want to profit financially. PETA is dedicated to protecting monkeys and promoting good science and is aggressively moving to determine our next steps.

Since the petition for rulemaking was submitted, additional evidence has been published and was submitted to the Fish & Wildlife Service as readily available information, including a recent Science Advances publication showing that long-tailed macaque populations throughout Asia are 80% smaller than expected; a population variability analysis showing that removing adult female long-tailed macaques, the favored monkey in the experimentation trade, from their native habitat leads to plummeting populations that are difficult, if not impossible, to recover; and a study that describes increased infant Southern pig-tailed macaque mortality when groups of these monkeys are confronted with increased conversion of their natural habitats to palm oil plantations.

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