End the international primate trade

From NEAVES | Project R&R | BUAV

Please click on and take action on the following, details below:

• End cruel primate trade in Mauritius

• Send Sample Message to the (same) embassy: mauritius.embassy@verizon.net

• Sign the petition to the Prime Minister of Mauritius
  

• Call 202-244-1491, ext. 1492
  

BACKGROUND

NEAVS, in support of BUAV’s campaign, is working to end the international trade in nonhuman primates for research. The campaign has exposed the cruelty and suffering inflicted on thousands of wild primates who are torn from their families and jungle homes to be exported directly for research or imprisoned to produce monkeys for laboratories worldwide.

The BUAV investigation revealed that these monkeys sustain injuries, broken limbs and even deliberate cruelties. One “official” trapper routinely caught monkeys by grabbing their tails and swinging them and kept them in appalling conditions on his property.

The U.S. is the largest importer of primates. U.S. companies include Covance Research Products, Charles River Laboratories and Worldwide Primates.

The primates are transported as cargo on airlines. In just one day, Charles River received a shipment of 1,168 primates while Covance received 2,050 macaques in just two shipments. In 2009, Covance alone imported over 9,000 primates.

One of the many horrors of this trade is the forced separation of mothers and infants. Long-tailed macaques normally wean their babies gradually at around 14 months and continue intimate contact for years. If captured and destined for research though, forced separation is immediate and extremely distressing for both mother and baby. On breeding farms, infants assigned for research are often removed under one year, as early as 8 months.

Related | Gateway to Hell

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It is estimated that each year more than 100,000 primates are used in research worldwide—predominantly in the U.S., Japan and Europe. Small, barren, steel cages are standard housing, with no meaningful opportunities for enrichment or socialization. These unnatural conditions cause monkeys to develop abnormal and self-destructive behaviors from stress related trauma. In a typical lab, monkeys pace, rock, sway, bite the bars, and self-mutilate—having been driven to what, were they a human-primate, would be called “insane.”

In addition to their suffering from confinement, primates are used in toxicological (poisoning) research which lasts months, even years. They may be regularly dosed with chemicals or drugs through injection or forced tubal ingestion. They may be deliberately inflicted with brain damage or have electrodes implanted in their brains. Experiments can even include multiple surgeries just to prepare the primate for a study. For example: first to implant a head mount onto his/her skull, second to dissect his/her eye or ear to implant search coils, and third to destroy part of his/her ear canal, eye, brain, etc.

SAMPLE MESSAGE ONE | COURTESY OF BUAV

Dear Consul General,

I am shocked by the findings from the investigation by the BUAV into the trade in primates for research in Mauritius.

The trapping of wild monkeys is extremely cruel and causes great suffering. The conditions in which captive primates are kept fail to meet the many complex behavioral and psychological needs of these highly intelligent and social animals.

Your government may be unaware of the ultimate fate of these monkeys. I urge you to consider the pain and suffering that is inflicted on them in overseas research laboratories. For example, many will be used in toxicity tests which involves the forced ingestion, inhalation or injection of potentially lethal chemicals.

I appeal to you to ensure that immediate action is taken to put an end to this appalling cruelty and ban the capture and export of primates. I hope that you will be moved not only by the findings of the BUAV investigation, but also by the impact they will have upon Mauritius’s international reputation.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent issue.

NAME|ADDRESS|COUNTRY

SAMPLE MESSAGE TWO

Dear Consul General,

I am extremely disturbed to learn the cruelty inflicted on primates as captured, imprisoned, and exported by Mauritius for research, the efficacy of which is unproven, demonstrably cost-prohibitive, and lethal, not only on non-human animals, but also on human animals.  These experiments subject these sentient animals to enormous suffering and pain, and I respectfully request that you immediately cease your participation in such an unethical practice.

Animals are sentient beings, capable of thought and emotion, including love and suffering.   I appeal to you to acknowledge this important condition that both humans and non-humans share.  We must teach our children respect for, and empathy towards, animals, for our children are undeserving of this cruel legacy whereby animals are exploited and suffered for human greed and egotistical motive.  Please consider my request, immediately cease causing harm to these inquisitive and intelligent animals, and implement animal research and testing alternatives that have proven both superior and financially beneficial as compared to unreliable and archaic animal models.

NAME|ADDRESS|COUNTRY

Additional Anti-Vivisection Sample Letters HERE

Remember to:

Please write to the Mauritian Embassy in the USA using the following postal address or the Automatic Message HERE:

Mr. J. Nayeck
First Secretary
Mauritius Embassy
1709 N Street, NW
Washington DC 20036
USA

Sign the petition to the Prime Minister of Mauritius and circulate it to your family and friends.

Call 202-244-1491, ext. 1492

Previous:

• Gateway to Hell, Please Protest Airports That Support Vivisection
• Trading in Cruelty: The cruelty of trapping and farming wild monkeys in Mauritius.
• BUAV releases further shocking evidence of monkey suffering in Mauritius

i have been alive a long, long time
some of it in prose, some of it in rhyme
i see the calendar pages turning
but in my favor it is not,
the cruelty mounting, watching
mankind rot
i pray so hard for this to change
lost in a world twisted and deranged
i take each breath in hope unsurmounted
looking away, as the days are counted
the tortured eyes of souls innocent
i wonder where god’s garden went

Karen Lyons Kalmenson