SAEN LogoGroup to USDA: Revoke monkey farm's license after deaths
Media Coverage About SAEN Stop Animal Exploitation Now

ACTION ALERT:

Contact to DEMAND the USDA to TERMINATE Primate Products' LICENSE:

Dr Elizabeth Goldentyer
Director, USDA, Eastern Region
919-855-7100
[email protected]
[email protected]

SAMPLE MESSAGE:

Thank you for seriously investigating SAEN's recent Official Complaint against PRIMATE PRODUCTS for callous negligence and issuing a citation as a result. NOW, please TERMINATE their animal dealer license. Any facility that is so NEGLIGENT that monkeys are electrocuted by heaters AND has a long history of blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act should NOT be allowed to endanger animals any longer. Their behavior MUST NOT be tolerated and MUST LOSE their animal dealer.

 

Group to USDA: Revoke monkey farm's license after deaths
By Amy Bennett Williams, News-Press.com, June 4, 2015

After the USDA cited a Hendry County monkey farm for the electrocution deaths of three macaques last winter, a national nonprofit is asking the federal agency to shut it down.

"The USDA has done the right thing and launched the process of prosecuting Primate Products," said Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, an animal rights watchdog group. "Now they need to finish the job and revoke Primate Products' license as an animal dealer."

On Jan. 31, 2014, workers at Primate Products found the three primates who'd chewed on a heat lamp cord dead of electrocution.

After unplugging and removing all electric heaters from animal enclosures, the company switched to propane and retrained its staff.

It sent the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare and the USDA letters detailing the incident. The company answers to both federal agencies, which oversee its operations, as do a number of state and local entities.

The former sent the company a letter acknowledging its "prompt" and "appropriate" actions, closing by saying it found no cause for further discipline.

The latter took no official actions — at first.

In January — more than a year after the deaths — Budkie wrote the USDA, asking it to "issue the largest fine allowable under the Animal Welfare act (and) also revoke the license of Primate Products as an animal dealer."

The USDA did neither.

Then, a PETA worker went undercover at Primate Products and presented her findings to the USDA last month. The complaint detailed eight months of alleged incidents including injured, emaciated and mistreated animals at the facility.
 
The USDA inspected May 29, then cited the company for eight violations of the Animal Welfare Act, including the electrocutions.

"This raises several questions," Budkie said. "Why was (Primate Products) never cited for any of this before? Why did it take a PETA video and pressure from SAEN to get them to finally cite them?"

Primate Products president Jeff Rowell said he has always expected follow-ups and fines by the USDA, but welcomes the opportunity to improve the well-being of his company's animals.

"Primate Products is receptive to any recommendations and directives from agencies who are genuinely committed to animal welfare issues as they relate to research using animal models which are intended to support public health," he wrote in an email. "The directives and timelines set for implementation by the USDA will strengthen our program."

For Budkie, though, primate well-being in captivity is an oxymoron.

"Monkeys aren't supposed to be in captivity," he said. "These are wild animals that are subjected to constant, unremitting stress and horrible conditions."

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