Monkey Press Release

"Nepal's monkeys are both sacred and beautiful creatures. They should not be exported to any country for research purposes, but should be allowed to live wild and free."

- Dr. Jane Goodall

Nepal Monkey Lab Plans Raise International Protests
Close to 1200 people from 21 nations have signed a petition calling on Nepal to cancel its plans to establish laboratories using rhesus monkeys and to export monkeys.  

Signers came from a variety of nations: India, Nepal, Singapore,
Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the United States,
Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, China, New Zealand, Panama, Jordan, UAE, Israel, Colombia, Spain, and Japan. 

Animal Nepal and Wildlife Watch Group have joined hands with the world's leading animal welfare agencies and biologists to oppose the breeding and exporting of Nepalese monkeys for biomedical research in America. The monkeys are to go to Washington and Texas where potentially dangerous and/or lethal experiments will be carried out on them. Two American agencies, the Washington National Primate Center (WNPC) and Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR), and their Nepalese counterparts received government permission to catch, breed and export Nepalese rhesus monkeys for this purpose.  

The campaigners in their petiton outline that monkeys are considered sacred and are an important part of Nepal's heritage for a number of reasons. They say Nepal will not deserve credit for providing monkeys for biomedical research by maintaining outdated, unreliable, and unethical methods for conducting studies. Most countries now maintain a complete ban on great ape experimentation. India for instance, after realising that its rhesus monkeys were used for gruesome radiation experiments in the US, banned all primate exports in 1977.

American centers try to find loopholes in the world's legal animal rights provisions, and in Nepal (one of the few countries in the world still largely without such legislation) it has found ideal working ground.

The campaigners strongly request the Nepalese government to demonstrate its commitment to enlightened and ethical research practices by halting (breeding facilities for) biomedical research on Nepalese monkeys and implement legislation to prevent such developments from reoccurring.

For more information:
Monkey Business Campaign Network, 

Wildlife Watch Group
Mangal Man Shakya
C/O WWG House, Jwagal, Kopundol – 10, Lalitpur
E-mail: wwg@citesnepal.org
Phone: +977-1-5550452, 5524188, 5011010, 5553870
Fax: +977-1-5011006