Hundreds of monkeys being bred for laboratories in Europe are killed for growing too large, claims animal rights group

• WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
• The disturbing images show discarded dead monkeys stacked in piles on the floor or dumped in rubbish bins
• Mutilated bodies can also be seen in a skip awaiting incineration, according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

Animal rights activists have published shocking pictures and video of hundreds of monkeys they claim were killed because they were too big for testing in British laboratories.

The disturbing images show discarded dead monkeys stacked in piles on the floor or dumped in rubbish bins. 

Mutilated bodies can also be seen in a skip awaiting incineration, according to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.

The group claims the unwanted healthy primates were given lethal injections in the heart and then burned on a monkey-breeding farm on the holiday island of Mauritius.

British firms are said to pay £260 a time for the animals – but overseas labs are said to only be interested in those weighing less than 3.5kg.

BUAV claims pregnant monkeys and babies are also being slaughtered at the Noveprim breeding farm, a major exporter of as many as 10,000 moneys a year to the UK, Spain and the USA.

BUAV Director Sarah Kite last night called on the British government to order an immediate ban on the import of monkeys from the Indian Ocean island.

‘This is a cruel and senseless slaughter,’ she said. ‘It is unacceptable that monkeys who have been exploited for years are now simply discarded because they are of no further use to this company.

‘These monkeys should be released into the wild so that they can live out the rest of their lives freely. By importing monkeys from this company, the UK is perpetuating this appalling cruelty,’ she added.

Shocking: Animal rights activists have published pictures of hundreds of monkeys they claim were killed because they were too big for testing in British laboratories

Mauritius is the world’s second-largest exporter of long-tailed macaques for research.

Three-quarters of the monkeys are used for toxicology tests on new drugs. The others are tested in studies for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and Aids.

In 2011, 518 monkeys were exported to the UK from Mauritius. The previous year, the number was even higher at 1,059. Only America bought more.

BUAV said it believes the killings started at the beginning of October and will continue until the end of next month.

A Noveprim spokesman wasn’t available for comment last night.

News Link:-: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2225035/Hundreds-monkeys-bred-laboratories-Europe-killed-growing-large-claims-animal-rights-group.html#ixzz2An5E1ypo
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Pet monkey who wore diapers and dressed as Santa shot dead after ‘flipping out’ and unleashing attack on his owner

A 3ft pet monkey who dressed as Santa, wore diapers and played with his family’s children has been shot dead after the creature ‘flipped out’ and attacked his owner, ripping apart his hand.

JayJay the Macaque monkey unleashed his attack after escaping his home in Okeechobee, Florida and evading capture by his owner, Jimmy Schwall, who tried to catch him in a net.

The monkey wriggled free and clamped down on Schwall’s buttocks and thigh and tore apart his right hand. A friend grabbed a gun and Schwall told him to shoot, killing the monkey.

Loved: Mona and Jimmy Schwall with JayJay the Macaque monkey, left, and Bratt the marmoset monkey. JayJay, whom the family had had for nine years, was shot dead after he attacked Jimmy

The bite was so deep that Schwall suffered seven injured tendons and one injured nerve, and has had to undergo two three-hour surgeries on his hand, he told MailOnline. He had around 200 stitches and must take pills for two weeks to keep infections at bay.

The attack shocked his owners, Jimmy and his wife Mona, who welcomed JayJay into their family when he was just three weeks old. He was nine when he died.

They kept the pet in a large enclosure in their yard, dressed him in costumes and clothes, placed him in diapers and let him play with their children in the pool.

‘He was very much part of the family,’ Mona told MailOnline. ‘Me and my husband didn’t have children together and he was basically our child. He was very much loved and he is very missed.’

The family would dress him up as a pumpkin or bumblebee so he could go trick-or-treating at Halloween. He would squeeze into clothes for children aged 12 to 18 months, Mona laughed.

‘In all the time we had him, he never even so much as knocked a thing over in the house. He didn’t even pull down the Christmas tree. We’d dress him as Santa and he’d open his presents – and ours.’

Her husband, who is recovering at home, said it had been heartbreaking to lose JayJay.

‘We’re just upset,‘ Jimmy Schwall said. ‘We were discussing which urn to put his ashes in and it was really hard. We really miss him.’

Schwall, who still faces rehabilitation to regain use of his hand, said he had no regrets about keeping the monkey, who he claims just ‘flipped out’ after he tried to use a net to catch him.

And he maintained he would keep all the remaining animals at his five-acre ranch, including a Marmoset monkey named Bratt, llamas, miniature horses, chickens and dogs.

Schwall escaped further injury as the monkey did was not carrying any viruses – but his wounds still proved a challenge for doctors at Martin Memorial Hospital.

‘I’ve seen dogs bites, cat bites, an occasional snake bite, human bites, but I’ve never had a monkey bite,’ plastic surgeon Avron Lipschitz told the Palm Beach Post. ‘I feel like my physical repertoire has expanded.’

Keeping exotic pets in Florida is not unusual as it only requires a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission license. The Schwalls bought JayJay from a breeder nine years ago.

But experts have warned that the incident, which took place on August 15, is just a latest in a string of attacks that proves the dangers of keeping wild animals.

‘Anybody that keeps a monkey is going to get bit,’ said Lion Country Safari wildlife director Terry Wolf. ‘I haven’t heard of a monkey that wouldn’t bite somebody.

‘The baby grows up and becomes an adult, the adult resents confinement. You can not change a monkey into something it’s not.’

It came a week after a man from Port St. Lucie was riding a motorcycle with his pet Marmoset when he crashed, and the animal bit the finger of a fire rescue chief.

AN UNNATURAL HABITAT? JAYJAY THE MACAQUE MONKEY

JayJay, who measured three-feet tall and weighed 26 pounds, was a Macaque monkey, which are native to Asia and Northern Africa. They are also found in numerous zoos, kept as pets and are often used for medical research.

They are heavily-built creatures and feast on bamboo, fruit, insects and leaves in the wild.

They have strong social hierarchies, allowing the higher-level creatures to pinch resources the lower-level monkeys have collected.

More than three quarters of macaques kept in captivity in zoos or as pets are carriers of the herpes B virus, which is harmless to the monkeys. While infections in humans are rare they can be fatal, which makes macaques unsuitable as pets.

News Link:-: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192986/JayJay-pet-monkey-shot-dead-vicious-attack-owner-Florida.html#ixzz25w0lsJfA

Vietnamese soldiers held over deaths of rare monkeys

Vietnamese authorities have detained three soldiers suspected of torturing and killing two rare monkeys, state-run Voice of Vietnam newspaper reports.

The monkeys were endangered grey-shanked douc langurs

One of the men had posted photos on Facebook showing how the monkeys were killed, triggering a public outcry.

The monkeys were endangered grey-shanked douc langurs (Pygathrix cinerea), reports say.

The soldiers, stationed in Vietnam‘s Central Highlands area, are now under investigation.

One of them, Nguyen Van Quang, who is serving in the Tay Nguyen Command of the Vietnamese army, posted photos of the monkeys on his Facebook page last week.

The photos showed one of the monkeys, believed to be pregnant, being made to smoke a cigarette before it was tortured and killed.

Col Nguyen Van Hai, head of Tay Nguyen Command’s Military Prosecutor’s Office, told the Voice of Vietnam that the soldiers had been detained and were being questioned.

“We’re still continuing our investigation into the case. When we have enough evidence, they [the soldiers] will be dealt with in accordance with Vietnamese military laws,” he said.

He added that the three had admitted killing the monkeys and said they had bought them from locals.

The men, who were identified on Thursday, are set to appear in a military court on an as yet unspecified date.

What is more worrying about the incident is that the young soldier who posted the photos on Facebook did not think he did anything wrong, says Nga Pham from BBC Vietnamese.

Authorities now realise that they need to do something to educate people, especially the young, about animal welfare and protection, she adds.

News Link:-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18923533

4,000 monkeys saved as Colombian vivisector loses wild capture permit

Colombia: ADI has described the decision by the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca to revoke permits to capture wild owl monkeys for malaria experiments as a “breakthrough for animal protection and conservation”.

The Tribunal ruled that research on owl (night) monkeys, by Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, breached Colombia’s commitment to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

The permits, planned to run until 2015, would have allowed Patarroyo to trap 4,000 primates for experiments related to malaria vaccine at the Institute of Immunology Foundation of Colombia (FIDIC).

ADI undercover investigators secured video footage of the laboratory’s monkey trapping operation along the Amazon. The ADI video shows trappers searching the forests by night for owl monkeys; the trees netted and the tiny monkeys, unable to escape, are torn from their homes; terrified and screaming, they are pushed into sacks for the journey up river to the laboratory. The team also filmed inside FIDIC where the monkeys are kept inside tiny barren, metal cages, a shocking contrast to their native forest homes.

Jan Creamer, ADI Chief Executive said: “We are delighted that the Tribunal has taken decisive action, preventing the horrific suffering of thousands of monkeys and the potential devastation of wild populations. We hope that the next step will be to end these cruel experiments once and for all.”

In the ruling, the Tribunal criticised the Ministry of Environment for failing to exercise controls concerning the hunting and scientific study of primates. It further stated that because import permits for owl monkeys of the species Aotus nancymae were not required, this fuelled a trade for these primates, in contravention of CITES regulations.

The Tribunal found that there had also been a number of anomalies in permissions granted to Patarroyo dating back to 1984, which included irregularities in permit procedures and breach of obligations and prohibitions of Colombia’s National Resources Code.

As a result of the Tribunal, disciplinary action against officials at the Ministry of Environment is now being initiated. FIDIC and the Corporation for Sustainable Development of Southern Amazonia (Corpoamazonia) were also sanctioned.

Researcher Angela Maldonado, lawyer Gabriel Vanegas and ADI submitted evidence to the tribunal; Angela is Project Director of Fundacion Entropika, whose educational and census work with local communities, with ADI funding, has reduced the hunting of owl monkeys in the Amazon. The unique work by ADI undercover investigators and Angela’s study team has assisted her work in the region to protect owl monkeys.

• Read about ADI’s investigation into South American monkey trade here
• Watch our Save the Primates video here (the owl monkey trapping and research footage can be viewed at 3:40-5:05)
• Make a donation to support our investigations here

 News Link:–http://www.ad-international.org/animal_experiments/go.php?id=2724&ssi=83

5 California research monkeys retiring to Oklahoma

LOS ANGELES

Five rhesus monkeys from a California research lab are being retired to anOklahoma sanctuary because of a $200,000 donation from animal activist Bob Barker.

The unidentified research lab, the Mindy’s Memory sanctuary in Newcastle, Okla., and the animal advocacy group Stop Animal Exploitation Now worked out details that will allow the animals to spend the rest of their lives at the primate sanctuary.

The organizations said Tuesday that the monkeys will be moved after the lab staff socializes the animals.

Mindy’s Memory, founded in 1992, is already home to about 100 retired research monkeys, as well as several potbellied pigs and a few dogs, cats and other animals.

News Link:http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/12/4556448/5-california-research-monkeys.html

Abused monkey finds a loving home at South Texas sanctuary

DILLEY — A pet monkey that endured years of heartbreaking cruelty has finally found a loving home at a primate sanctuary in Dilley, Texas. 

Officials at the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary said the long-tailed macaque was never let out of his small cage to exercise in the 10 years he lived with his former owner in Michigan. The former owners even allegedly got JR high on marijuana and drunk off booze.

Last week, JR made the 28-hour drive to the sanctuary in South Texas, where he was renamed Freeman. Officials said the monkey will be in quarantine for the next two weeks while he received grooming and is introduced to a proper diet.

Born Free USA Director Tim Ajax said in a press release, “This monkey was living a life of horror and we are doing everything we can to help him acclimate. Private ownership of exotic animals, especially primates, is a cruel business that starts with a baby being stolen from his or her mother for profit and often ends in a psychologically damaged animal forced to endure a life of isolation and misery.”

Freeman’s former owner was convinced to release the primate to a sanctuary after years a coaxing from a concerned citizen.

News Link:–http://www.kens5.com/news/Abused-monkey-finds-a-loving-home-at-South-Texas-sanctuary-157472915.html