PETA Calls For Criminal Probe After Altasciences Staffer Tosses an Endangered Monkey Into the Air and Fails to Catch Him

For Immediate Release:
November 3, 2023

Contact:
Kendall Davis 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding the critical citation posted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture against Altasciences, a contract laboratory based in Everett, Washington, after a staff member tossed a monkey into the air and failed to catch the animal, who dropped to the floor:

It’s already difficult to imagine how anyone participates in the daily violence staffers visit upon animals imprisoned at Altasciences, but to also use the limp body of a sedated monkey as a plaything for their own ghoulish amusement is just sick.

A just-posted U.S. Department of Agriculture report details that on May 16, a staffer at Altasciences was seen repeatedly tossing into the air and catching a sedated male long-tailed macaque, an endangered species. The staffer eventually missed, and the small monkey —the size of a house cat—dropped to the floor. The force of the impact from the unbroken fall caused bruising around his face and chin. PETA has filed a complaint with local law enforcement, urging an immediate investigation.

Altasciences force-feeds test pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals to nonconsenting animals. Last year, the company used 530 dogs and 3,303 monkeys in experiments.

PETA urges Altasciences to modernize its laboratories by using sophisticated, non-animal research methods that will actually help humans and adopting the principles of PETA’s Research Modernization Deal.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.