canadians: endangered monkeys need your help. please help them.

Photo: Ignacio Yufera

An activist friend alerted me to this a while back. I wasn't able to focus on it -- ironically, because it's something I care so deeply about. 

Animal cruelty is the one place I can't go. Allan is the same way. We donate to animal-related causes, and we don't pretend it's not out there. But we both avert our gaze, because we find it too painful to face. 

I'm sure many of you are the same.

If this describes you, and you don't want to know too much about the issue, please just click here to sign a petition. I know some people have problems with PETA, but PETA is the only group working on this right now. I hope you will put your qualms aside and add your name with a simple click.

The issue in its briefest form: endangered macaque monkeys are being captured from the wild and imported into Canada for experimentation. There is no rational justification for this.

This is not only an issue of animals and the environment: it is also an issue of human health. COVID, HIV, and other infectious diseases originated when animal pathogens were transmitted to humans.

The US has already banned this. A reminder that Canada is not always more progressive than the neighbour we love to hate.

Canadian scholars and researchers have called on the Trudeau government to take action. Please join them.

Everyone can and should oppose this, no matter what you choose to eat or wear. 

Click here to send a letter to Canadian officials, demanding this abhorrent practice be banned.

More information below, if you want it.

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Canadian scholars and researchers call on Trudeau government to stop importation of endangered primates for experimentation

For release November 7, 2024 - 8:00 EST

[Québec City, QC and Toronto, ON]—As Charles River Laboratories is scheduled to bring yet another plane load of hundreds of endangered macaque monkeys into Montreal via a Sky Taxi airline flight today, more than 80 Quebec and Canadian university professors, researchers, and clinicians have released their letter calling on the Canadian Government to stop importing primates for biomedical experimentation.

The letter includes support from renowned zoologist Dr. David Suzuki, CC OBC FRSC; Avi Lewis at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Climate Justice; international law professor and former member of parliament Craig Scott; Dr. Laura Mae Lindo, social justice scholar and former Ontario member of provincial parliament; Dr. Kendra Coulter, an expert on animal labour at Western University’s Huron University College; and Dr. Melissa Lem, a family medicine professor at UBC and the president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).

It reads, in part:

A decade ago, chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives, ceased to be used for experimentation because using such animal "models" could no longer be justified from scientific, ethical, and/or financial perspectives. Despite the emergence of many new methodologies, including organs-on-chips, 3D bioprinted tissues, organoids, advances in in silico modelling, stem cell-derived models, multiomics, and systems biology approaches, the pharmaceutical industry suppliers have dramatically increased their reliance on another primate species for biomedical experimentation, the long-tailed macaque.

In addition to the rapid disappearance of macaques in Asia, we are also concerned about the serious risks of transmission of zoonotic pathogens (diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans), which are the highest in primates and bats.[3] The trade in certain macaque species has a high zoonotic potential.[4] In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we urge extreme caution regarding human exposure to zoonotic pathogens linked to the international wildlife trade.

We the undersigned urge the Canadian government to:

• End illegal charter flights organized by Charles River Laboratories to import monkeys via SkyTaxi or any other airline; 

• Send a clear message that Canada is not a safe haven for animal import violations by strengthening enforcement and penalties for animal import and testing violations 

• Adopt regulations banning the importation of all primates for biomedical testing 

• Implement incentives for researchers to move from animal models to new technologies.

Quotes

“The COVID-19 and HIV pandemics have taught us the importance of remaining vigilant about the transmission of zoonotic pathogens to humans,” said Dr. Michael Schillaci, PhD, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto. “US Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Justice authorities are investigating primate importers for allegedly illegally importing wild-caught macaque monkeys from Cambodia. The importers remain unable to prove that shipments coming into the US from Cambodia did not contain wild-caught monkeys who had been falsely labeled as captive-bred.”

“The greatest risk for zoonotic pathogens would be with wild-caught macaques,” Schillaci continued. “There are no methods for analyzing tissues, such as blood or hair, to establish with any reasonable degree of confidence which monkeys, if any, are captive-bred rather than wild-caught. The Americans seem to understand this. The Canadian government needs to protect Canadians’ public health from the zoonotic pathogens that imported exotic wildlife, such as these macaques, can carry.”

“My colleagues and I urge prime minister Justin Trudeau and environment minister Steven Guilbeault to close Quebec and Canadian skies to the trafficking of endangered monkeys for experimentation,” said Dr. Jesse Greener, PhD, a professor of chemistry at the Université Laval. “If the Trudeau government is serious about its climate and environment commitments, it must use its power to keep macaques in their natural habitat, not in Canadian laboratories.”

“Indeed, the government of Canada should be encouraging researchers to pivot to emerging technologies such as organ-on-chip, which significantly reduce ethical considerations while producing more reliable results,” Greener concluded.

Quick Facts

More than 10,000 long-tailed macaques were imported into Canada  from Cambodia between January 2020 and July 2024.

Long-tailed macaques are the most heavily traded species of primate for use in biomedical experimentation and in 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) elevated them to “Endangered.” Their extraction from the wild for use in experimentation was cited as one of the factors leading to their dramatic population declines since the 1990s.

A macaque in the forests, temples, or villages of Asia is not a significant infectious threat to humans and in fact plays a crucial role as a buffer in these complex ecosystems. But when those monkeys are caught up in the experimentation pipeline, not only do they suffer in unspeakable ways, they also become significant infectious disease threats.

In early 2023, Charles River Laboratories, the self-described largest importer of monkeys in the world, had multiple shipments of long-tailed macaques denied clearance by United States (US) Fish and Wildlife authorities when the company was unable to prove that these animals, imported from Cambodia, were not illegally captured from the wild and falsely labeled as captive-bred on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) permits that accompanied them to the US.

US Fish and Wildlife authorities instituted a de facto ban on importation of Cambodian-origin macaques in early 2023 and since then Charles River Labs has pivoted to importing Cambodian-origin macaques to Canada instead.

Breeding captive long-tailed macaques doesn’t produce enough monkeys to meet the experimenters’ demand. This has led to a deadly trade in wild-caught monkeys in which entire troops of macaques are targeted in vicious trapping schemes. Macaques destined for Canada are boxed up at monkey factory farms like Charles River’s supplier K-F Cambodia. Diseases are common at these facilities. Many of the monkeys die or are injured in the crowded, filthy, and barren cages.