(CN) Monkey Farming

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South China Sunday Post Magazine

 

Made to suffer: Exporting primates for research

 

The mainland is quickly and quietly becoming the world's leading breeder of

primates destined for laboratory research. The country has many factory

farms devoted to the business

 

By Richard Jones

Sep 13, 2009 |

 

Thousands of tiny hands grip the cage bars. Their resemblance to those of

children is discomforting - but a similarity to humankind is the reason

their possessors are here.

 

Cage after cage in row after row stretch along the subtropical valley floor.

Inside sit long-tailed macaques: the favoured monkey of the vivisectionist

because they are small and easily handled. The creatures look like they know

what their future holds; wide-eyed they cower at the back of their cages,

already terrified of human contact. Mothers clutch babies in their sterile

prisons, their fate etched in code on metal discs that hang around their

necks.

 

The monkeys' short lives will come to an end in laboratories in Europe, the

United States and Japan; their torture the dark side of advances in science

and medicine.

 

When complete, at the end of the year, this monkey farm, north of Guangzhou,

will be the biggest in the world, able to house 50,000 primates. The

facility is being built in some secrecy in Conghua county by Blooming Spring

Biological Technology Development.

 

The location was well chosen; it is obscured by a hill, invisible from a

nearby highway and within 30 minutes of an international airport. The cages

are hidden in a pink-tiled compound more than a kilometre in length that is

surrounded by a three-metre-high wall. Inside, scientists scurry about in

white coats.

 

The mainland has been quickly and quietly building monkey farms since about

2000, when breeding stock was imported from Cambodia. The mainland now has

39 farms, most of which are licensed to breed for the lucrative export

trade. Although numbers are difficult to ascertain, official figures - along

with those from US sources and this investigation - suggest there are more

than 200,000 captive primates on the mainland. Official figures last year

put the number of monkeys in farms licensed for export at 170,000.

 

Guarded and gated, the farm compounds have been built in dead-end valleys,

jungle clearings and even on an island. Visitors are not welcome and

journalists are despised only slightly less than animal-rights activists.

 

" How did you find this place? " demands a security guard at the anonymous

entrance to the Blooming Spring farm, which has the appearance of a

nondescript factory. By searching country lanes and questioning locals for

two days is the answer, but we do not give it.

 

" No one comes here, " says the guard, calling through to a superior. " No

visitors are allowed here. "

 

The guard's boss, who introduces himself as " Supervisor Deng " and seems ever

alert for potential buyers, is more welcoming. He drives us through the

facility in a black jeep.

 

" We have bought that hillside, " he says, nodding to his right. " Soon it will

also be covered in cages. We have our own water supply and feeding

facilities here for up to 50,000 monkeys. "

 

The DNA of long-Tailed macaques and other primates is about 96 per cent

identical to that of humans, making their bodies an accurate testing ground

for scientific procedures and drugs prior to them being declared safe for

humans. Research that even a generation ago would have seemed whimsical -

into gene therapy, cures for cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, stem cells

and antibody-based treatments - requires a lot of testing; on monkeys.

 

Figures published in July show British scientists carried out 4,598

experiments on primates last year, a 16 per cent rise on 2007. The US is the

world's largest consumer of lab monkeys; 2007 figures (the most recent

available) total 69,990 primates - an all-time high. The British Union for

the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) claims about 90,000 monkeys are used

annually worldwide.

 

Increasingly these animals are coming from the mainland. Eighteen thousand

long-tailed macaques were exported from the country to the US last year.

Many of these monkeys, the BUAV claims, are " torn from the wild " , a practice

forbidden by European law. A film taken this year and screened on the BUAV's

website shows Cambodian traders capturing and bagging macaques for sale to

farms that trade with the mainland.

 

The organisation's director of special projects, Sarah Kite, says, " The BUAV

investigation exposed the shocking cruelty inflicted on wild monkeys during

their capture, handling and subsequent confinement in small plastic bags and

storage under the planks of a boat.

 

" BUAV investigators filmed trappers as they illegally hunted primates in the

swamps and jungles of Cambodia, including inside a specially protected

wetland nature reserve. "

 

Shirley McGreal, director of the International Primate Protection League

(IPPL), says, " The animal farms are sucking up monkeys from Cambodia and

Vietnam and there is no question that they are getting them illegally. The

US Fisheries and Wildlife Service has ongoing investigations into the

sources of monkeys coming from China.

 

" The trade is an ugly one and we foresee a future where monkeys are wiped

from the face of the earth. In 30 years or so there will be no primates

available [in the wild]. "

 

Conservation International, a non-governmental organisation that promotes

biodiversity and world conservation, reported last year that 11 of the

world's 25 most endangered primates are native to Asia.

 

The mainland's farmed monkey population needs to be continually replenished

to ensure a strong genetic base and prevent inbreeding. Dr Yue Feng, general

manager of a Nanning bioengineering firm and spokesman for the Primates

Biotechnology Research and Development Centre, says, " It is necessary to go

to the origin of the crab-eating monkeys [long-tailed macaques] to find some

better quality monkeys " to introduce into the farmed populations, an

admission offered up repeatedly by monkey farmers.

 

A long-awaited vote on the use of laboratory animals in the European Union

in May proved a major disappointment for animal-rights groups. Big

pharmaceutical companies and scientific establishments spent fortunes

lobbying politicians to ensure there were no big changes to the law.

European scientists argue that restrictions on using primates would give

researchers in the US an advantage.

 

Scientists are adamant that the use of primates is essential. Oxford

University neuroscientist Tipu Aziz told a preliminary meeting of European

parliamentarians that a ban would force him to abandon research that could

lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's, motor neurone disease, strokes and

many other illnesses. Aziz's research on monkeys taught him how to insert

electrodes into the brains of Parkinson's sufferers, delivering instant

relief.

 

Despite their victory in the European Parliament, it appears some

pharmaceutical companies are planning ahead, hedging their bets in case a

future vote goes against them.

 

McGreal says she was told by a spokesman for a large pharmaceutical company

that his company was setting up a lab on the mainland, in which 7,500

monkeys would be housed.

 

" He told us that the feeble oversight of animal facilities in China and the

cheap workforce meant it was easy and cheap for them to operate in China, "

she says.

 

A report released by the Chinese delegation at a Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species meeting in Mexico last year stated: " Because of

the high cost of maintaining laboratory animals and the animal welfare

issue, many companies in developed countries want to move their animal

experiments overseas, especially to the developing countries. "

 

The mainland could make a lot of money experimenting on monkeys on behalf of

other countries. Overseas researchers would be able to work in a country

that has no animal-welfare laws and in which animal-rights groups would find

it almost impossible and unlawful to operate.

 

But, for now, mainland businessmen are concentrating on breeding monkeys for

export.

 

An enterprising Fujian province zookeeper, Yu Zhengyang, 38, became a monkey

trader when he decided there was no money to be made in public zoos. He now

breeds rhesus macaques, the second-most sought after primate for testing,

which he sells on to labs.

 

" Domestic scientific research units demand more than 10,000 rhesus monkeys

annually, " he says. " There is no doubt that the market potential is great. I

bought my first 70 monkeys at 5,000 yuan [HK$5,680] each and can sell

`cultured' animals for 10,000 yuan each. I have around 200 monkeys and in

two or three years I hope to have 700 and be the biggest farm in Fujian

province. "

 

The price paid for " cultured " (healthy and pathogen-free) monkeys when

exported runs at between US$2,000 and US$3,000 each - equating to a market

that runs into hundreds of millions of US dollars.

 

The monkey farms are mostly located in remote areas of Guangxi, Yunnan and

Guangdong provinces. The hot, humid, bamboo-covered hills of Conghua county

are home to at least four such operations.

 

One of the country's oldest farms is located on a jungle-covered island in

the middle of the Mekong River, in Xishuangbanna prefecture, on the border

with Vietnam. The farm breeds 14 species of monkey and a research worker at

the facility claims it exports the primates to Britain and is also carrying

out a " big research project " for an American concern.

 

Blooming Spring chairman Deng Zhuobiao is keen to show off his headquarters,

about 20 kilometres from the new farm complex. He's proud of the fact his

monkeys are sold " overseas only " .

 

" Business has been growing steadily for the past four years. I have a lot of

confidence in the future of this business, " he says as he gives us a brief

tour.

 

The quarantine room houses 368 stainless-steel cages. " We have three rooms

like this, " says Deng. " The facility could push out 1,104 monkeys every 60

days. "

 

Next come the labs in which the monkeys are tested to ensure they are

disease-free, followed by cage upon cage of petrified animals, many carrying

babies. Before we leave the facility Deng shows us his export licence and

breeding certificate.

 

" We already do business with some very big US companies, " he says, " and we

export to Europe. "

 

Deng also stresses that Blooming Spring is applying for recognition by the

Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care,

which would permit it to carry out experiments for international

organisations.

 

" With the government behind us it makes things very easy, " says Deng, the

supervisor. " Things have loosened up with the current economy. The

government wants us to succeed. "

 

At the Conghua Yueyuan Laboratory Animal Breeding Farm, about 30 kilometres

from the Blooming Spring farm, the chief veterinary surgeon, a Mr Li,

explains that only about two yuan is spent per day on the upkeep of monkeys

that fetch at least US$2,000 when they are exported.

 

" Our biggest overseas customer is an American company involved in both

cosmetic and pharmaceutical businesses, " says Li. " They buy at least 500

monkeys every year. That's US$1 million right there. We also have customers

in South Korea and Germany. "

 

A Blooming Spring worker says monkeys are transported 180 at a time in

specially made metre-long plastic crates. " We have to give them space or the

animal-welfare people overseas complain. "

 

According to Michael Budkie of the NGO Stop Animal Exploitation Now, the

" hellish conditions " monkeys are subjected to in mainland farms is " nothing

compared with what they will experience once they arrive in the US " .

 

Budkie, who has been investigating conditions in US animal laboratories for

more than 20 years, says macaques from the mainland are used in a variety of

experiments, including brain-mapping and research into drug abuse, and will

be infected with " any number " of diseases.

 

" The monkeys are trained [to carry out repetitive tasks] using water

deprivation for up to 22 hours at a time, " says Budkie, explaining the

brain-mapping tests. " They are put in restraint chairs, a hole is cut into

their skull and electrodes are hard-wired into their brain. The research

goes on for several years - if they can keep the animals alive that long.

 

" Drug research involves force-feeding them heroin, cocaine and PCP and then

examining withdrawal. The monkeys are placed alone in stainless-steel cages

that are just nine square feet, " he says. " There are no stimuli for the

macaques, which are normally social animals - they literally go insane. Drug

addiction therapy can continue for 10 years, the longest was 14 years. "

 

However, most export monkeys, having been selected for quarantine when they

are between one and three years old, won't have to suffer for that long.

" Most are dead within a year of arriving in the US, " says McGreal.

 

It is an open secret that the US Defence Department is one of the monkey

farms' biggest clients. " The monkeys are used in bio-warfare weapons

research, " says McGreal. " They are poisoned with rycin, sarin, anthrax, even

Ebola. We attended a conference for an institute of lab science and a lady

from the defence department was quite candid about the suffering the monkeys

go through. They only put them out of their misery right at the end, she

told us. "

 

Back at the Conghua Yueyuan farm, Li tries to interest us in a business

proposition. " If you wanted to set-up as a monkey exporting agent for the UK

you can make yourself some good money, " he says. " We will do all of the hard

work and you can just communicate with the UK labs and make yourself easy

money.

 

" I have no doubt in my mind that China will soon be the most important

exporter of lab monkeys in the world. "