EURO-MP Caroline Lucas demands monkey vivisection ban

October 18th, 2006

INVESTIGATION REVEALS SQUALOR OF VIETNAMESE MONKEY FARM

EURO-MP Caroline Lucas has called for a complete ban on animal experiments using primates after an undercover investigation in Vietnam revealed monkeys destined for EU labs were being kept in squalid conditions outlawed in the EU.

Footage from the world’s largest breeding centre for lab primates revealed the shocking conditions in which Vietnamese Macaques were being reared, in many cases before export to vivisection laboratories in the EU.

Dr Lucas, Green Party Euro-MP for South-East England and vice-president of both the RSPCA and the European Parliament’s cross-party animal welfare group, said: “The video evidence collected by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) is shocking and appalling.

“It shows hundreds of macaques being kept in row upon row of squalid, rusty, small cages, screeching constantly with distress – and revealed high levels of illness, injury and death amongst the macaques.

“Even worse, BUAV have uncovered evidence that suggests the monkey farm concerned is replenishing its stocks by catching the monkeys in the wild – a barbaric practise that has caused widespread outrage in the EU. A visit to one supposed ‘breeding site’ uncovered not a single pregnant monkey.

“Standards of animal welfare fall well short of the minimum required by the EU for animals being held in captivity here – and we should be making sure these conditions are being respected anywhere animals are bred for EU markets. In this case it is even more shocking as the monkeys concerned are destined for experiments which are cruel, unnecessary and, according to increasing numbers of doctors themselves, unhelpful and often misleading.”

Dr Lucas said the European Commission was currently reviewing the law regarding animal experimentation in the EU and called for it to ban all primate experiments.

BUAV investigators have posted footage of their visit to the Nafovanny farm in Vietnam, which supplies 30,000 macaques a year to the vivisection industry on the Internet after Sky, ITV and the BBC backed away from earlier commitments to screen the film. You can watch the video at www.buav.org/monkeybusiness

BUAV’s Campaigns Director Alistair Currie added: “Life on the breeding farm is just the start of a lifetime of fear, pain and suffering for these intelligent and sensitive animals.

“We want to see Home Office approval of this supplier revoked immediately but that wouldn’t deal with the root cause - the demand that’s led to this kind of factory-farming.

“The rules in Europe are being reviewed right now so the UK Government has an historic opportunity to get all monkeys out of factory farms and labs by lobbying in the European Union for a ban on all use of monkeys in experiments in Europe.”

ENDS

Ben Duncan
Media Officer to Caroline Lucas MEP
benduncan@greenmeps.org.uk
01273 671946 (office)
07973 823358 (mobile)

Source: EURO-MP Caroline Lucas

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