Many thousands of monkeys still suffer in laboratories in Europe and around the globe each year
Following years of campaigning by Cruelty Free International and other animal protection groups, Air France has finally agreed to stop transporting monkeys to be used in painful tests.
Until its recent decision, Air France was only major European passenger airline still involved in the cruel transport of monkeys to laboratories. Each year, thousands of monkeys were packed into the cargo holds of Air France planes and flown around the world to suffer and die in experiments.
A 2017 investigation by Cruelty Free International found 120 long-tailed macaque monkeys shipped by Air France over 10,000 miles from Mauritius to the US via Paris. The monkeys were crammed into small wooden transit crates for over 37 hours as they were transported from a monkey farm to a laboratory in the US for use in poisoning tests.
Our Chief Executive, Michelle Thew, said: “We applaud Air France for finally doing the right thing. Its decision will spare thousands of monkeys each year from a nightmare journey followed by life in a metal cage subjected to cruel experiments. We hope that this will serve as a wake-up call that testing on monkeys is not acceptable.”
Thousands of monkeys are still used in tests each year in Europe. The majority of these intelligent, sociable animals are used in regulatory tests: legally required tests in which animals are forced to ingest or inhale products or have them applied to their skin or injected into their bodies, sometimes daily for weeks or months.
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