WATCH NOW: Importing Monkeys for Experiments Exposed

Did you know that 90% of all monkeys used in experiments in the UK come from Africa or Asia? Many of them are snatched from their forest homes on the other side of the world to be used in the laboratory breeding supply chain.

In 2021, 2,204 primates were used for the first time in experimental procedures in Great Britain, and 551 of them were the young of wild-caught parents.

Monkeys are being shipped to US laboratories, too. Watch this new video to see PETA US pulling back the curtain on this clandestine, nasty world in which monkeys are traded for cash, its operatives cloak themselves in secrecy, and the dangers to humans are ignored:

Violence Flows Through It

The monkeys’ ordeal begins when hunters in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Mauritius, or Vietnam trap mother monkeys, pry their babies away from them and stuff them into bags, and then cram the mothers – and any other surviving troop members – into crates. Some will be sold directly to US laboratories, while others will end up on commercial monkey factory farms, where the mothers will be forced to breed in filthy, barren conditions. Injury and illness are frighteningly common at these facilities, and many of the monkeys die. All the babies are ripped away from their mothers shortly after birth.

Those who survive these monkey factory farms – whose similarities with “wet markets” can’t be ignored – are crammed into small wooden crates and loaded onto planes by the hundreds for a dark, terrifying flight to their certain deaths. The journey sometimes takes days, leaving the monkeys to languish in their own urine and faeces.

In laboratories, primates may be mutilated, poisoned, deprived of food and water, forcibly immobilised in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, and psychologically tormented.

Experimenters kill most of the monkeys when they’re done with them or after their bodies are too spent to continue. Very few make it out alive, and none ever make it back home.

Clear and Present Danger to the Public

Because of our genetic similarity, the risk of transmission of bacteria and viruses from monkeys to humans is greater than with any other group of animals. Primates are known to carry and transmit a slew of nasty pathogens and diseases, including herpes B virus, tuberculosis, antimicrobial-resistant microbes, Ebola-like viruses, simian haemorrhagic fever virus, shigellosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, malaria, dengue, and leprosy.

Although commercial monkey importers are required to screen for deadly pathogens that could spill over to humans, they often miss them, as not all can be detected and some don’t show up until months or years later. And new, unidentified viruses that have the potential to cause pandemics are also a risk.

Piles of Dead Monkeys, Unfulfilled Promises

Despite decades of promises and hundreds of thousands of dead monkeys, experiments using the animals have not resulted in effective vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, or other dreaded human illnesses. COVID-19 experiments have shown the scientific community how irrelevant and often misleading monkey studies are. It’s time to end this barbaric and deadly trade.

What You Can Do

Thanks to the efforts of PETA entities, other animal protection organisations, and caring people around the globe, nearly every major airline in the world has stopped transporting monkeys to laboratories.

Please urge EGYPTAIR to join them: