PETA Asks United Airlines to Ban Monkey Cruelty
UPDATE: VICTORY! United Airlines has banned the transport of primates to laboratories. The decision follows a year-long campaign by our affiliate PETA US. Air France and China Southern Airlines are the only remaining major airlines that transport primates destined for experiments. Let’s hope they follow United Airlines’ compassionate example and stop supporting cruel tests on primates soon.
Activists from PETA Australia spoke up for monkeys recently in a protest outside the offices of United Airlines in Sydney. The army of “primates” asked the airline to commit to a ban on transporting primates to laboratories.
United Airlines reviewed its longstanding policy against transporting monkeys and other primates to laboratories following its merger with Continental Airlines, which was the last major US airline to ship primates to laboratories to be caged, experimented on, and killed. United has since refused to confirm that it has maintained its ban.
Every year, tens of thousands of monkeys are shipped to laboratories in the United States and Canada, where they will be locked in barren cages, force-fed experimental chemicals and addicted to cocaine and other drugs, as well as having holes drilled into their skulls. Ultimately, they will be killed.
Airlines who ship primates to this terrible fate are just as guilty of terrorising and killing these animals as those who wield the drills and scalpels. Monkeys who were separated from their families, including many taken from the wild, are locked in dark, terrifying cargo holds – often on passenger flights, just below unsuspecting customers – for as long as 30 hours and then delivered to facilities where they will be poisoned, cut up and killed.
Almost every major airline in the world – including Qantas, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, US Airways, Air China, China Southern Airlines, TAM Airlines, Hainan Airlines, El Al Airlines and dozens of others – refuses to take any part in this violent industry and prohibits the transport of primates to laboratories. However, a shrinking group of airlines – including Air France, China Eastern Airlines, Philippine Airlines and Vietnam Airlines – continues to profit from animals’ misery by transporting monkeys destined for US laboratories.
Monkeys and other primates are sensitive, intelligent individuals who belong in the wild. As with all animals, they are not ours to use for experimentation or any other purpose. It is time for all airlines to realise that flying terrified monkeys to grisly deaths in US and Canadian laboratories is inhumane and unjustifiable.
Posted by Claire Fryer
Animals Are Suffering in Laboratories – Help Save Them Now
