PETA to Feds: Transport Co. Must Be Forced to End Illegal Monkey Shipments!
For Immediate Release:
November 3, 2022
Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382
PETA has uncovered evidence that notorious trucking company Quebedeaux’s Transport, which has made a name for itself by hauling monkeys to laboratories across the U.S., has operated in serious violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) while already under an out-of-service order from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). In response, PETA filed a complaint with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Administrator Betty J. Goldentyer today, urging an investigation and, if warranted, the maximum penalty fines afforded by law.
Even though Quebedeaux’s Transport’s USDA license to transport animals was canceled in August, documents reveal that in October, the company hauled four elderly long-tailed macaques—now listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in large part because of demand from experimenters—from a breeding operation in Florida to Arizona State University. The company also transported monkeys to experimentation facilities in Everett, Washington; Mount Vernon, Indiana; and Sanford, Florida while prohibited from conducting business under the out-of-service order, which it received for refusing to undergo a DOT-required safety audit.
“This trucking company is illegally delivering fragile, endangered monkeys to certain torment and death in laboratories,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Quebedeaux’s Transport has an extensive history of recklessness and endangering the public, and PETA is calling on federal officials to shut it down.”
Quebedeaux’s Transport was also the company behind the high-profile crash in Pennsylvania earlier this year of a truck carrying 100 long-tailed macaques imported from Mauritius, which sent dozens of crates holding monkeys, who had not yet been quarantined or tested for dangerous pathogens, flying into the air. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was quick to descend on the scene, fearing potential transmission of pathogens, and three escaped monkeys were ultimately shot dead. Quebedeaux’s Transport was also involved in a 2020 incident in which a truck hauling monkeys caught fire.
In addition, the company was recently forced to cancel its plans to build a monkey warehouse in Louisiana after state officials sent numerous cease and desist letters pointing out that such an operation would violate state laws prohibiting the possession of nonhuman primates—after PETA pointed out that it would also endanger the public, as monkeys can harbor numerous diseases and pathogens transmissible to humans, including Ebola-like viruses, tuberculosis, West Nile virus, and malaria.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—is also calling on the USDA to launch an immediate investigation into Arizona State University for its role in unlawfully transporting the elderly monkeys.
For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
