Trafficking in Misery: The Primate Trade

From the jungle or savannah to the laboratory, every moment of the captured primate's experience is characterized by sickness, despair, fear, loneliness, and terror. Many primates die during quarantine and transport into the United States, with the mortality rate reaching a high of 20 percent at one point, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Those who survive the miserable journeys from their homes are funneled into gruesome, painful, repetitive, and often pointless experiments from which few emerge alive.

Every year, the United States imports approximately 11,000 primates for use in experiments. Many of these primates have been caught in their natural habitats, while others are bred in shoddy, substandard operations in China, Mauritius, Indonesia, and the Philippines. From 1995 to 2000, more than half of the primates imported into the United States were shipped in by just two companies and their affiliates—Charles River Inc. and Covance Research Products Inc. While many countries—notably, India, Brazil, Peru, Malaysia, and Thailand—have banned the export of all or some species of primates because of conservation and welfare considerations, other countries continue to participate in the cruel trade for the sake of easy money.

During a one-year investigation into the international primate trade, investigators witnessed workers for import companies setting out bait for primates and then catching whole primate families in traps. The "undesirable" animals were not released-instead, they were beaten to death or sold for meat. The surviving animals were packed into tiny crates with little to no food or water and taken to holding centers where they awaited shipment to the United States or Europe. They were eventually packed into cramped crates and loaded into the cargo holds of passenger airplanes for flights that covered thousands of miles and lasted 48 hours or more.

Each year, when shipping crates bound for laboratories are opened upon arrival at airports in the United States and Europe, dead primates are discovered—animals who are victims of hypothermia, dehydration, and diarrhea. The primates who have survived the grueling trip are trucked to holding centers, animal-supply companies, and laboratories where they will be quarantined and subjected to barbaric tests. Many who do not die as a result of experimentation die of pneumonia and other diseases.