MANILA, Philippines - The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) yesterday called on airline companies to stop transporting monkeys that are used in experiments.
PETA made the appeal in a statement, citing a video footage of monkeys that allegedly suffered inside the Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories (SNBL) USA.
The SNBL, reportedly the “third-largest importer of nonhuman primates to laboratories in the US, routinely abuses and neglects monkeys and torments them in painful and lethal experiments,” PETA said.
“By transporting primates for experimentation, these airlines are complicit in the abuse taking place in laboratories such as SNBL, where monkeys are confined, restrained, poisoned, and left to suffer,” PETA Asia’s vice president of international operations Jason Baker said.
“These airlines need to let their customers know that they will no longer facilitate and profit from the misery of these intelligent, social animals,” he said.
PETA said some of these primates are bred in captivity in cramped, squalid monkey farms, while others are torn from their families in the wild. The traumatized animals are crammed into small wooden crates and transported in the dark and terrifying cargo holds of planes, often on passenger flights just below unsuspecting customers.