[ad_1]
Chinese company JOINN Biologics has purchased 1,400 acres of land near Gulf Hammock, Florida, southwest of Gainesville, and plans to build a massive facility there to quarantine and warehouse newly imported monkeys, effectively establishing the Levy County area as another point along the dangerous and deadly wildlife-trade chain. The monkeys would be sold and trucked to laboratories across the U.S. for use in barbaric experiments.
The land JOINN purchased—according to reports, one of the biggest recent Chinese acquisitions of U.S. land—isn’t zoned for quarantining imported animals, but the company still appears to be going ahead with its plans.
That’s why PETA recently sent more than 4,000 Florida residents an urgent letter asking them to call on Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has spoken out against the facility, to stop it from being built.
PETA’s letter notes that monkeys in the wildlife trade are often stressed, injured, and exposed to pathogens that can spread to humans. These pathogens can go undetected during quarantine screening, and some don’t show up until months or years later.
New, unidentified viruses with pandemic-causing potential are a risk, too.
JOINN’s facility, which could house thousands of monkeys a year, could introduce monkeys’ urine, feces, and other bodily secretions into the environment, where other animal species would be affected.
Some of the monkeys might even escape, as has happened at similar facilities. Earlier this year, a truck transporting monkeys to a quarantine facility crashed, and the animals who escaped were shot out of fear that they could be carrying dangerous pathogens.
This misguided facility would mean misery for the monkeys warehoused there, and it would put the health of every Levy County resident at risk. We must stop JOINN’s plan before a single brick is laid.
—PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo
Long-tailed macaques, one of the species JOINN would most likely import, are now recognized as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This is in large part due to their capture and exploitation as part of the international wildlife trade to U.S. laboratories, where they’re mutilated, poisoned, deprived of food and water, forcibly immobilized in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, psychologically tormented, and killed.
Florida residents: We urgently need you to call DeSantis at 850-488-7146 and politely ask him to use his authority to stop JOINN from building this dangerous monkey prison.
Tell the CDC to Shut Down the Monkey-Abduction Pipeline
Despite decades of promises and hundreds of thousands of dead monkeys, experiments using animals haven’t resulted in effective vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, or other dreaded human illnesses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has admitted that the importation of monkeys poses a danger to the public, yet it continues to allow the experimentation industry to bring them into the country.
Help end this barbaric and deadly trade.
[ad_2]
Source link
