Monkey-laundering?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

 

 

Monkey-laundering?

 

HONG KONG--Is a small amount of monkey-eating in southern

China covering for a large amount of monkey trafficking from the wild

to U.S. labs?

Among the reasons for vigilance:

* Monkey-trapping and smuggling appear to be increasing

throughout Southeast Asia, allegedly for Chinese markets. Yet

reports from within China indicate no rise in monkey consumption,

amid increasing efforts to suppress eating contraband wildlife.

* U.S. lab use of nonhuman primates has more than doubled,

from 25,534 in 2002 and 25,834 in 2003, to 54,998 in 2004, and

57,531 in 2005, the latest year for which the USDA Animal & Plant

Inspection Service has complete data.

* Increased Chinese monkey exports to the U.S. appear to

account for more than half of the increased U.S. use, but the

numbers of monkeys reportedly in Chinese breeding colonies are not

nearly enough to produce the numbers that U.S. users are buying.

U.S. law prohibits importing wild-caught monkeys for

research. Both crab-eating and rhesus macaques, the most often

imported species, are protected in China. Neither may be legally

hunted or captured from the wild.

Yet macaque dealers in southern China have emerged--with government

help --to fill the U.S. lab demand.

Even if the Chinese dealers have enough macaques now to produce the

volume sold, where did they get their breeding stock?

Imports for consumption may be one method. A monkey who has

purportedly been eaten could disappear from any existing records,

but perhaps could be resurrected as " captive-bred, " therefore legal

for use in breeding or export.

Questionable numbers surfaced in a July 7, 2007 report about

the Chinese monkey business by Stephen Chen of the South China

Morning Post.

Xie Liping, owner of the Guangxi Weimei Bio-Tech Company in

Nanning, " runs one of the biggest primate breeding centres in

Guangxi, a region that produces half of the nation's monkeys used

for experiments, " Chen wrote. " She started four years ago with

fewer than 100 crab-eating macaques and now has more than 12,000.

When a huge expansion project--covering the equivalent of 31 soccer

fields--is completed next year, 50 barracks wrapped in shiny steel

bars will be home to 20,000 monkeys. "

But " fewer than 100 crab-eating macaques " cannot breed up to

12,000 in four years, or 20,000 in five years. A crab-eating

macaque does not reach estrus until age four, and bears only one

infant per year.

Thus, even if most of Xie Liping's macaques were females,

they could at most have increased to about 500. If Xie Liping has

12,000 now, most must have been bought from other sources.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service records show that Guangxi Weimei

Bio-Tech sold 600 monkeys to the U.S. in 2006. That might be

plausible, but would leave no surplus for expanded breeding.

Xie Liping did not allow Chen to visit her breeding center,

saying that her monkeys could not be exposed to human germs.

" Among Weimei's 12,000 monkeys, " Chen reported, " 3,000 will

be selected, quarantined, and sold to the U.S. this year. "

Continued Chen, " The Weimei breeding centre is one of the

many rapidly growing number of farms on the mainland for raising

monkeys, with most found in Guangxi and Guangdong. Stimulated by

soaring demand from U.S. bio-defence programs, supported by

governments at various levels, and heavily funded by private

investors, the scale of primate farms on the mainland has tripled

within half a decade. "

According to Chen, " The central government got the ball

rolling in 2002 with the release of the nation's first

primate-breeding standards. Beijing, Hubei, and Guang-dong

provinces followed a year later, publishing their own guidelines.

Similar work started in Guangxi in 2004, " two years after Xie Liping

founded her business.

Guangxi Department of Science and Technology director of

experimental affairs Wei Gang told Chen that there are eight

registered monkey farms in Guangxi, housing about 40,000 monkeys in

2006, but rapidly expanding, with several new breeders entering the

business. Monkeys from Guangxi " are also sold to the European Union,

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, " Chen wrote.

Wei Gang confirmed past irregularities. Before government

licensing began in 2001, he told Chen, " Some [monkey breeders] even

bought wild species on the black market and sold them as domestic

pets. "

Trafficking bust

On July 7, 2007, the same day Chen's article appeared,

Malaysian wildlife department criminal division deputy director

Celescoriano Razond capped a two-week probe by seizing 950

crab-eating macques and arresting four men, three Malaysians and an

Indonesian, on a plantation in Pontian, Johor.

" The monkeys, captured from the jungles of the central state

of Pahang and the southern state of Johor, are believed to have been

headed for either China or Holland, " wrote Meera Vijayan of the

Malaysia Star. Razond told her that those going to China would

probably be eaten, while those going to the Netherlands would be

used in labs.

" The monkeys were found in a pitiful condition in filthy

cages and blue gunny sacks. Around 100 dead monkeys were found piled

in a heap nearby, " Vijayan noted.

Monkeys are still eaten in China, but the practice is

discouraged, as China Daily discussed on December 13, 2006,

reporting that " A man narrowly escaped arrest after illegally selling

monkey flesh in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan province. "

The single incident was considered nationally newsworthy.

" The man beat a gong to advertise his wares, " and was

photographed in the act, " but fled before the public security bureau

could apprehend him, " according to the Nanguo Metropolitan

newspaper, whose article China Daily summarized. " The vendor

claimed his monkey flesh was fresh from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous

Region. The meat sold quickly, " China Daily added, but some

passers-by " disapproved, saying it is cruel to kill a monkey and

sell it as food. "

Continued China Daily, " An official from the Haikou Forestry

Public Security Bureau said killing monkeys and selling their meat

breaks the laws protecting wild animals. If apprehended, the vendor

will be fined six to ten times the sum he made from his sales. "

Trade volume

U.S. imports of crab-eating mac-aques increased from 14,778

in 2001 to 27,270 in 2005, according to CITES documents obtained by

Chen. Imports from China rose from 3,266 to 12,878.

Ten of the top 20 monkey exporters to the U.S. in 2006 were

Chinese companies, according to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service records

obtained by the International Primate Protection League. Of the

11,712 monkeys they sent to the U.S., just one firm, Guang-dong

Scientific Instruments & Materials, provided 5,494.

Mauritian firms sent 4,191, Viet-namese firms sent 3,596,

and exporters from Cambodia (1,532), Indonesia (913), and the

Philippines (368) rounded out the list.

Altogether, the U.S. imported 26,338 nonhuman primates in

2006, a slight decrease from 2005. At least 23,756 (90%) of the

2005 total were for lab use.

" Unfortunately many of these monkeys have already been killed

in bio-warfare or infectious disease experiments, " said IPPL founder

Shirley McGreal. " Most were crab-eating macaques. This species may

be doomed [in the wild] if wholesale trade predation is not

controlled, " McGreal warned, noting that U.S. imports account for

only part of the trade.

" Some U.S. and European users are exporting their research to

foreign countries with relaxed or no animal protection laws or

enforcement, " McGreal pointed out, " such as two U.S. labs, " the

Washington National Primate Center and the Southwest Foundation for

Biomedical Research, " which are setting up branches in Nepal. "

Both IPPL and the Australian organization Primates Helping

Primates have recently spotlighted the efforts of Animal Nepal and

the Wildlife Watch Group of Nepal to draw attention to the Nepalese

projects. Nepalese animal advocates contend that the monkey labs

operate contrary to traditional Hindu and Buddhist teachings.

CITES

McGreal helped to win increased protection for slow lorises,

a small nocturnal primate native to much of Southeast Asia, at the

June 2007 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species, held in the Netherlands.

Delegates from the 170-odd member nations agreed at request of

Cambodia to elevate the slow loris to Appendix I status, meaning

that the animal is internationally recognized as endangered, and may

not be commercially sold across national boundaries.

The major threat to slow lorises, however, other

than from habitat loss, is from the traditional medicine industry,

a formidable foe, but much less so than U.S. government-funded

primate research. Some slow lorises have also been sold as pets,

chiefly in Japan.

IPPL and other primate protection groups received only a

deferred promise of consideration of a CITES listing for Barbary

macaques, the North African species whose colony at Gibralter are

the only wild monkeys in Europe. While Barbary macaques are rarely

used in labs, there appears to be considerable resistance in many

nations to protecting any macaques, as a possible step toward

protecting other species whose trade might cover for trade in the

endangered species.

The increasing lab demand for macaques meanwhile has

encouraged Puerto Rican trappers to intensify efforts to capture

feral rhesus macaques and red monkeys. The monkeys were introduced

to Puerto Rico to be bred for research more than 80 years ago. The

National Humane Review, formerly published by the American Humane

Association, mentioned efforts to extirpate them in the 1930s.

Estimating the present monkey population to be about 1,000,

the Puerto Rican government has invested $450,000 in the present

capture campaign, according to Danica Coto of Associated Press.

The current price of a macaque for lab use is about $500 on

the global market.

--Merritt Clifton

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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