Action for Primates is joining other animal protection groups across Europe in a Week of Action against the trade in long-tailed macaques for research from Mauritius.
During 6th-11th December, more than a dozen European animal groups are raising awareness by holding events and taking part in a social media campaign that will focus attention on the Mauritius government, embassies and tourism offices across Europe, calling for an end to the Mauritius trade in monkeys for research.
Below, you will find numerous actions you can take to help the monkeys from Mauritius.
Please try to do all and ask others to join in this important campaign.
Mauritius, famous for its beaches, tropical climate, heritage sites and wildlife, is a popular destination for European holidaymakers.
The country’s promotion as a “paradise island”, however, is tarnished by a dark side of which most holidaymakers are totally unaware: the country’s cruel persecution of the wild monkeys who share the island with the human residents.
Mauritius is one of the world’s largest exporters of long-tailed macaques for the global research and toxicity testing industry and the main supplier to Europe, exporting thousands every year.
There has been a significant increase in the number of monkeys exported during 2021. Between January and September, 10,810 individuals were sent overseas to laboratories, including 1,913 (Spain), 758 (France), 642 (UK), 109 (Netherlands), 112 (Canada) and 7,276 (USA).
This represents an increase of over 58% for the same period during 2020. Supply companies – Camarney SL in Spain and Silabe (Simian Laboratory Europe) in France – are known to regularly import many of these monkeys for breeding or for sale to laboratories in Europe.
The monkeys are packed into small transit crates and transported from Mauritius as cargo by air.
Air France is the main airline known to be involved in transporting monkeys from Mauritius to Europe.
Other airlines that fly monkeys out of Mauritius to other destinations include Safe Air (Kenya-based) and Wamos Air (Spanish-based).
After France and Great Britain, Germany is the largest European “ape consumer”.
Above all, # toxicity tests (# toxicity tests) are carried out in which test substances are introduced into the bloodstream via a vein or into the stomach via a tube in the mouth.
Seizures, internal bleeding and organ failure are just some of the possible (side) effects the monkeys have to suffer from.
At the end of the experiments, they are killed and their bodies dissected.
Rhesus macaques were forced to become cocaine addicts for a year and then subjected to two years of forced withdrawal, while changes in the brain were analysed in an attempt to understand what happens to people.
This research was done at the University of Pittsburgh.
It was “approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Pittsburgh” and funded entirely with public funds through the National Institutes of Health.
According to the NIH RePORTER, the researchers have already been awarded almost $2 million US for this project.
Fourteen adult male rhesus macaques were “trained” to perform several menial tasks on a touch screen monitor.
The macaques were deprived of water to the extent that the researchers could use water as a “reward”.
During the experiment, they were only allowed “25 mL/kg/day”.
This would only be about 175 mL (less than six ounces) for the entire day for a seven kg macaque, which is the average weight of an adult male.
The macaques were also subjected to surgery to implant a device in their backs so that cocaine could be injected directly into the bloodstream.
Eight of the macaques were coerced into self-administering cocaine, the maximum daily allocations of six infusions (about 21 mg per day) during four sessions per week, each lasting as much as two hours.
This went on for one year, or as the researchers called it, “chronic cocaine…self-administration”.
Their cocaine was then withheld, and they were forced to undergo two years of forced abstinence. The macaques used as the “control” animals had to perform the same tasks in order to receive the water “reward”.
The macaques were subjected to episodes of anaesthesia in order to perform magnetic resonance imaging at different times before and during the experiment.
There was no account of the effect the cocaine had on the macaques or the impact following its withdrawal nor how the monkeys were housed during the two years of forced abstinence.
Nor did the researchers state what the fate of the monkeys was at the end of the experiment. The approach and write-up of this experiment was mechanical and devoid of any humanity with respect to what these sentient and intelligent beings were subjected.
In people, it has been reported that cocaine produces a sense of euphoria.
A ‘crash’ follows almost immediately once cocaine is stopped. Users suffer a strong craving, as well as fatigue, anxiety, sleepiness, and sometimes agitation.
Craving and depression can last for months.
There is no reason to doubt that the macaques must have suffered similarly, made much worse by their imprisonment in single metal caging (we suspect, as this is the norm) and a lack of understanding as to what was happening to them.
Although the authors found ‘changes‘ in the macaques, more importantly, they cited many studies on the effects of cocaine on the brain and cognition of people.
Substance abuse is a human disease and is far more complex than simply taking drugs.
It is reprehensible that non-human primates – who cannot give their consent and are unquestionably unwilling – continue to be manipulated and made to suffer in this kind of ‘research’.
Human variables such as genetics, emotional and personal experiences, and socioeconomic aspects, can never be simulated or resolved through non-human primate research.
The millions of tax dollars spent each year on ‘animal models’ of drug addiction could be better used to directly help the millions of people who suffer from substance abuse.
This week (December 6-11, 2021) there will be many campaigns to draw attention to the government, embassies and tourism offices of Mauritius and call for an end to the monkey trade.
During the week of action, actions will take place in #Berlin and #Hamburg as well as in Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Spain to emphasize the demand on the government of Mauritius to finally get out of the cruel ape trade.
The animal welfare organizations involved throughout Europe in this week of action are: Action for Primates (UK), One Voice (France), Doctors Against Animal Experiments (Germany), ATRA (Switzerland), LSCV (Switzerland), Svoboda Zvirat (Czech Republic), ADDA ( Spain), Stop Camarles (Spain), Pro Anima (France), IBT (Austria), OSA (Italy), Animal Rights (Belgium) and ECEAE (European Coalition To End Animal Experiments)
Please send E-mail to Mauritius government ministers & tourism department; clicking on an E-mail address will create a sample message you can edit and Cc relevant individuals:
– The Hon Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Prime Minister: privateoffice@govmu.org
– The Hon Louis Steven OBEEGADOO, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Tourism: sobeegadoo@govmu.org
– The Hon Maneesh Gobin, Minister of Agro Industry and Food Security: mgobin@govmu.org
– The Hon Kavydass Ramano, Minister of Environment: kramano@govmu.org
– Ministry of Tourism: mtou@govmu.org
https://actionforprimates.org/public/afp_take_action_2021.php
And I mean…So the researchers don’t give the“control animal” anything to drink. He is thirsty.
He has to endure the cocaine injections.
He quickly realizes that he will get a few drops of juice if he behaves obediently.
Thirst is worse than fear, so go along with it.
Soon everything becomes routine: prison cell, loneliness, panic attacks, depression, headaches, thirst, cocaine injection, prison … After a few years he is killed and thrown away.
What is feasible with the defenseless persons is also allowed.
If you did this to a human person, it would be called deprivation of liberty, torture and murder.
And would be seriously punishable.
Performed on a monkey, it is called “science”. And the perpetrators are not punished; they are given millions of our tax dollars to do it.
Germany has been promising a decline in animal testing for decades.
The alternatives to animal testing are being thwarted by pharma industry lobbyists.
Animal experiments in Germany are funded with at least four billion euros per year (based on a conservative calculation based on available studies).
However, the contribution is likely to be much higher – it’s all about gigantic research sums.
And the money sack get those who hermetically seal off their medieval methods from the public, trivialize them and exaggerate their value for human health.
Nothing of this has anything to do with human health.
Animal testing is criminal idiocy.
My best regards to all, Venus
From Mark.
Here is a link to a post I did for WAV in July 2020 on this very same issue.
We protested at the Mauritanian embassy in London around 1985 about this very subject; see some photos on the link.
Regards Mark
World Animals Voice 
I’m going to say something about the USA: here, primates are “covered” by the Animal Welfare Act, which is 100% meaningless considering primates are also intentionally denied pain relief when it is thought to conflict with testing results, and they are all killed. What use is having an “Animal Welfare Act” when animals “covered” are treated the exact same and violently killed as the animals NOT “covered”. This stuff makes my heart hurt, humans say/write/do anything to attempt to validate the suffering of others. The only humane is veganism.
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