Victory! Monkey Importations in U.S. Stopped by Federal Government
Victory! The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has taken a monumental action, putting a swift end to the importation of monkeys captured in their forest homes around the world and destined for U.S. laboratories. This move shows the power of PETA and it’s supporters, who, en masse, urged the FWS to do exactly what it has done today to protect sensitive animals from being pushed to extinction by a greedy industry that prioritizes its own profits over sound, sustainable, and ethical science.
Monkeys around the world are safe from being violently abducted for U.S. laboratories, because the FWS now requires a DNA test that has yet to be developed—and could take up to two years to be created—to prove that any monkeys bound for torment and death in U.S. laboratories were bred in captivity. This is what more than 58,000 PETA supporters pushed for after the U.S. Department of Justice’s November indictments of numerous individuals involved in a worldwide monkey-laundering scheme.
The FWS has stood up for monkeys who are crammed into small wooden crates and loaded onto planes by the hundreds for a dark, terrifying flight to their deaths in U.S. labs. And the agency has protected the public from the threat of the potential spread of deadly pathogens carried by stressed and immunocompromised monkeys.
PETA urges the experimentation industry to seize this extraordinary opportunity to retool and reimagine laboratory testing and put the U.S. on the vanguard of non-animal, human-relevant testing models by using PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal.
