What you can do to Stop the Monkey Business in Puerto Rico

Unfortunately, my hometown of Puerto Rico continues to struggle with cruelty related issues. After the dog killing fiasco that took place in the town of Vega Baja in 2007, one hopes that Puerto Ricans have become more cognizant of these types of issues. What is about to take place in the southern town of Guayama has the potential of generating much more animal suffering than was caused in Vega Baja.

Bioculture, a corporation that sells primates to research labs, plans to capture monkeys from their natural habitat in Mauritius and imprison them in Guayama, Puerto Rico. Once the primates are moved to Puerto Rico, Bioculture plans to breed them and sell their babies for use in animal testing.

Primates (and many other animals) often endure incredibly painful and cruel treatment when confined in experimentation facilities. What makes this even worse is that most, if not all, of this suffering is gratuitous, given that there are myriad alternatives to animal testing that yield similar benefits (for a good source of unbiased information about alternatives to animal testing, see the website of the John Hopkins University’s award winning “Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing”).

I hope that those who so vigorously opposed the dog killing incident will also voice their concern over this development. Furthermore, I encourage AnimalBlawg readers to do what they can to prevent this by signing a letter to Puerto Rico’s governor which can be found in PETA’s website. Although I am no fan of PETA, I believe that this is in fact a worthy cause.

Luis Chiesa