Help Stop the Biggest Monkey Breeding Facility in the United States
A macaque at a breeding facility in Cambodia who will be sold into pharmaceutical testing. Photo: Supplied to Species Unite
SIGN THE PETITION
Join Species Unite in telling the Bainbridge city councilors that the proposed monkey prison is an immoral disgrace and a betrayal of the people of Bainbridge who oppose the construction of this cruel and dangerous facility.
It has recently been revealed that the small town of Bainbridge Georgia is planning the construction of the largest monkey breeding facility in the United States. The proposed prison for long-tailed macaques will be capable of holding around 30,000 monkeys, who will be sold to pharmaceutical companies for animal testing.
The company behind the plans, Safer Human Medicine, is led by former executives of other key companies involved in sourcing animals for lab testing. These include Charles River Laboratories, which is currently under civil and criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, after it was revealed that monkeys in U.S. labs had been illegally caught from the wild and smuggled from Cambodia.
The breeding facility will not only be a place of unimaginable suffering for the innocent monkeys that will be held captive there, it will also create 444,000 gallons of wastewater every day which could pollute surrounding soil and water and seriously harm local residents and wildlife alike.
Despite the misleading name of the company behind this appalling plan there is nothing “safe” about animal testing. It has been proven time and again that human drugs should not be tested on other species as drugs can react very differently even in closely related species. In fact, it has been found that as high as 95% of drugs that are deemed safe in animal trials then fail human trials for being dangerous and/or ineffective.
Keeping tens of thousands of monkeys in captivity is also dangerous for local residents as these monkeys have the potential to transmit life-threatening zoonotic diseases. There have been frequent cases of monkeys around the United States escaping from much smaller facilities and there has been a significant increase in monkeys arriving to these facilities infected with dangerous illnesses such as Ebola-like viruses, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly pathogens that can spread to humans.
This breeding facility offers no benefit to the local community and in fact was authorized without going through the proper channels in a backroom deal that will provide this inhumane operation with tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks.
The people of Bainbridge Georgia do not want to have this suffering on their consciences nor do they want their environment polluted, their property values diminished and their lives put at risk for the sole benefit of a cruel and immoral company that profits off of the torture and killing of one of our closest living relatives.
Please join Species Unite in telling the Bainbridge city councilors that the proposed monkey prison is an immoral disgrace and a betrayal of the people of Bainbridge who oppose the construction of this cruel and dangerous facility.