PETA Uncovers Shady Deal to Cage 20,000 Monkeys In Florida by Former Charles River Execs

For Immediate Release:
February 18, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

PETA has uncovered a secretly orchestrated deal between monkey importer Charles River Laboratories and SIMI United States, LLC, a company newly incorporated by the executives behind Safer Human Medicine—the company intent on building a gigantic monkey farm and warehouse against the wishes of locals in Bainbridge, Georgia —to turn 70 acres of ecologically sensitive land in LaBelle into yet another massive monkey farm that would reportedly confine 20,000 endangered macaques.

The companies tried to keep the deal hidden, but PETA discovered it through whistleblower reports and public documents. Safer Human Medicine seemingly disguised its involvement by creating SIMI as a shell company, apparently to distance itself from the ferocious backlash over its stalled and legally entangled plans for a monkey facility in Georgia.

Some officers of Safer Human Medicine are former Charles River executives, including former Executive Vice President David Johst and former Executive Director of Nonhuman Primate Operations Kurt Derfler. It is unclear whether Safer Human Medicine is abandoning its troubled Bainbridge, Georgia, monkey farm project.

Records show that Charles River Laboratories not only sold the land to SIMI but is also holding the mortgage for the deal. The property includes a small monkey warehouse where Charles River stored imported macaques—many of them from Cambodia. Charles River never publicized the closing of their LaBelle facility or the sale of the facility and additional neighboring plots of land to a competitor.

Plans are to expand the facility to confine up to 20,000 endangered long-tailed macaques imported from Vietnam, according to a whistleblower. Vietnam is a major source of monkeys infected with tuberculosis and is under scrutiny by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

“The primate importation industry thrives on secrecy, backroom deals, and hidden transactions because it knows the public won’t accept its plans to keep 20,000 monkeys caged for sale to laboratories, with all the inherent risks involved in such an enterprise,” says PETA Senior Science Advisor on Primate Issues Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “If this massive facility moves forward, it would be the largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, fueling unprecedented animal suffering and serious environmental risks.”

An injured, bleeding, and scared long-tailed macaque caught up in the international wildlife trade. This photo was obtained through a public records request by Stiching Animal Rights.

The planned expansion of the existing Charles River facility could pose a major risk of environmental damage to the surrounding environment, which could be contaminated with monkeys’ saliva, blood, and other bodily fluids. Monkeys caught up in the primate importation pipeline have arrived to the U.S. infected with multiple strains of tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola-like viruses, simian hemorrhagic fever virus, deadly bacteria, and other pathogens and diseases that can be transmitted to humans and other animals. Monkey escapes are also common, most recently seen in the widely publicized escape of 43 monkeys from an Alpha Genesis facility in South Carolina in November.

Last year, PETA supporters and locals successfully pressured Charles River to scuttle plans to build a huge warehouse capable of holding 43,000 monkeys in Brazoria County, Texas.

In nature, macaques live in large groups with an intense focus on social relationships. These family-oriented animals are endangered, largely due to the biomedical industry decimating wild populations. Monkeys are torn from their families in the forest or bred on squalid factory farms before being boarded up in tiny wooden boxes, shipped to the U.S., and warehoused in barren metal cages until they’re sold and trucked to laboratories, where they will be poisoned, mutilated, and ultimately killed.

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 PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.