The controversial US company planning to breed tens of thousands of monkeys for experiments buys new facility in Florida
Safer Human Medicine, which is set to build a breeding facility with up to 30,000 monkeys in Georgia, has now set its sights on Florida too.
A macaque at a breeding facility in Cambodia who will be sold into pharmaceutical testing. Photo: Supplied to Species Unite
The controversial US company behind plans to build a breeding facility in Georgia that holds tens of thousands of monkeys has now announced the purchase of another facility in Florida.
Safer Human Medicine (SHM) made global headlines last year when it announced that it would be building a monkey-breeding farm that could house up to 30,000 monkeys. The planned facility, which is set to cost $396 million and would be the largest of its kind in the US, aims to breed long-tailed macaques who will then be sold to pharmaceutical companies that use the animals in animal tests and experiments.
But the company’s plans have been strongly criticized by animal welfare groups and many local residents in the small city of Bainbridge, Georgia, who have taken their fight to the courts through two separate lawsuits in an attempt to have the facility’s planning permission revoked.
The first lawsuit filed by Bainbridge residents alleges that area leaders violated the Georgia Open meetings act by controversially approving the facility in back-door meetings where the public had no opportunity to voice their concerns.
A second lawsuit claims that the huge facility will create a public nuisance, and pose risks such as exposure to infectious agents and hazardous waste leaks. It is estimated that the proposed facility would produce more than 444,000 gallons of wastewater including the feces, urine and other fluids from 30,000 caged monkeys.
Amid the lawsuits in Bainbridge, Safer Human Medicine has now announced that it has brought an existing quarantine facility in Labelle, Florida, to support its plans to breed non-human primates.
Residents in Bainbridge, Georgia, have built a sustained grassroots movement to fight against the proposed facility. Credit: Stand Up Bainbridge GA
In a statement posted last month, the company said that the Florida facility will be used to “complement” the operations of the Bainbridge site. The new acquisition will “accelerate” the company’s plans and will be used to conduct quarantine operations, while the Bainbridge facility will focus on non-human primate husbandry, SHM says.
According to a whistleblower report provided to animal welfare group PETA, there are plans to import up to 20,000 endangered long-tailed macaques from Vietnam to initially fill the facility.
The species is classified as “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and wild populations have declined over the last few decades in part due to the biomedical industry’s demand for the monkeys.
Please join Species Unite in speaking out against the monkey-breeding facility - sign our petition here.
Learn more by listening to the Species Unite podcast episode with Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, ‘S11. E5: Stop the Georgia Monkey Farm!’ - listen here.
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