Small town residents file second lawsuit against huge monkey breeding farm
If the plans are approved, the $396 million breeding facility will house up to 30,000 long-tailed macaques, which will be sold to pharmaceutical companies for animal testing.
Residents of Bainbridge, a small town in Georgia where there are plans to construct a huge monkey-breeding facility, have filed a new lawsuit as part of efforts to stop the proposal from going ahead.
The case is the latest move by the town’s residents who have rallied together with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) since the start of this year to fight against the monkey “prison”.
The 200-acre breeding facility by Safer Human Medicine will be capable of holding up to 30,000 monkeys - twice the human population of the town. The site, with an estimated cost of $396 million, will be dedicated to importing, breeding, and warehousing long-tailed macaques, which will then be sold to pharmaceutical companies for use in animal testing and experiments.
“What they’re planning here in Bainbridge is unprecedented in this country,” Amy Meyer, of PETA, told Unchained TV. “They’re planning to ultimately confine 30,000 monkeys on any given day and would be generating more than 400,000 gallons of wastewater a day. These are all monkeys who would be in the pipeline to be sent to laboratories across the country, where they’ll be force-fed chemicals, and addicted to drugs like cocaine.”
Credit: PETA
Alongside ethical concerns about controversial animal tests, residents are worried about the potential environmental and human health fears of housing tens of thousands of primates in confined conditions.
Filed by plaintiffs who own properties that border the proposed facility, run businesses that could be negatively impacted by it, or live along the river that it may pollute, the nuisance lawsuit cites economic harms and potential odors, noise, pathogens, and dangerous waste leaks from the planned facility as reasons for the court to block its construction.
The defendants have been named Safer Human Medicine, the Decatur County-Bainbridge Industrial Development Authority, and the Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County.
“How are we supposed to survive this? They have diseases. We have a huge water right here, the Flint River, so the environment is a big thing too. It’s overall jacked up,” Yvena Merritt, a concerned resident previously told WALB News 10.
Safer Human Medicine’s CEO is led by a former high-ranking executive from Envigo, which owned a now-closed beagle-breeding facility in Virginia. In June, Envigo pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of conspiracy to violate the federal Animal Welfare Act and by failing to provide adequate veterinary care and staffing. The company was ordered to pay a record-breaking $35 million fine, the largest ever in an Animal Welfare Act case.
This settlement came after multiple undercover investigations by PETA, as well as a two-year investigation by the US Justice Department (USDA), into the abuse of thousands of beagles at a breeding facility in Virginia that sold dogs to laboratories for experimentation.
“Safer Human Medicine’s CEO was an executive at a company that was found to be in violation of federal animal welfare laws and to be polluting waterways—and there’s no reason to think that he’s changed his ways,” says PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA stands with the residents of Bainbridge in rightfully opposing a loud, smelly, and dangerous monkey-breeding operation in their backyard.”
Credit: PETA
Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel told the Species Unite podcast that the overwhelming support from the Bainbridge community has been a remarkable silver lining in the face of these plans.
“One after another, citizens came up,” said Lisa, referring to a Bainbridge town meeting. “And they just hammered that council with additional concerns. You know, one of the guys, his place is 500ft from there. He's like, ‘What do you think this is going to do to me, to my family? How dare you expose me and my family and this community! None of you live around there. How could you have not brought this to a vote?’ A woman got up and started talking about the research modernization deal. Another woman got up and started talking about land values. A man got up and started talking about malaria. I mean, it's just one after another. They came up and I just, I don't know… I could have just started levitating because I was so buoyed by what this community was doing. And it has not stopped since then.”
Signs reading “STOP THE MONKEY FARM” are displayed outside homes and businesses across the town, while more than 1,100 people joined the Facebook group “Stand Up Bainbridge GA! A Call to Action!”
Listen to the full podcast episode with Jones Engel, S11. E5: Lisa Jones-Engel: Stop the Georgia Monkey Farm!, here and please join Species Unite in speaking out against the plans by signing our petition here.
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