Fears planned £320M 'deadly' 30,000 monkey farm will ignite next global pandemic

02 March 2024 , 08:00

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Fears planned £320M 'deadly' 30,000 monkey farm will ignite next global pandemic

"Outraged'"residents are fighting to block plans for a £320million "deadly" monkey farm that would see 30,000 animals roam in warehouses - amid fears it will "ignite the next global pandemic."

Locals and animal rights campaigners in Bainbridge, Georgia, a small town of around 14,000, are urging the City Council to block plans by a controversial company called Safer Human Medicine to build the staggering 200-acre complex. The warehouse would hold up to 30,000 long-tailed macaques and the animals would be sold to universities and pharmaceutical companies for medical research.

The facility would provide a domestic source of monkeys to offset imports, according to the company, which said medical researchers use the animals to test drugs before human trials and to research infectious diseases and chronic conditions like brain disorders.

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Residents are furious with the £320million monkey breeding farm that will see the animals sold off for animal testing

In addition, they claimed the monkeys would be kept in highly secure conditions, would not spread disease in the local area, and would be fed fresh local produce.

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“In the aftermath of the pandemic, we learned the hard way that our researchers in the US need reliable access to healthy primates to develop and evaluate the safety of potentially life-saving drugs and therapies for you, your family, your friends, and neighbours,” Safer Human Medicine wrote in an open letter to the Bainbridge community.

“Many of the medicines in your medical cabinets today would not exist without this essential medical research and without these primates, research comes to a halt.”

The 200-acre complex would house the 30,000 monkey's (Safer Human Medicine)

However, the company has faced criticism after being led by executives who formerly worked for two other companies that provide animals for medical testing. One of those companies, Charles River Laboratories, came under investigation last year for obtaining wild monkeys that were smuggled from Cambodia. The monkeys were falsely labelled as bred in captivity, as is required by US rules, federal prosecutors have alleged. The company suspended shipments from Cambodia.

Animal rights campaigners have hit out at the vast warehouse (Safer Human Medicine)

This has led to fierce criticism of the planned proposal from Bainbridge resident Kristina Martin, from No Monkey Breeding Bainbridge, a local Facebook group with nearly 7,000 members fighting back against the plans which were first announced around January 10. Kristina exclusively told The Mirror that residents were "outraged" to find the planned proposal in their population of just 14,000.

She revealed: "[We] were outraged, frustrated, and shocked to find out that this monkey breeding facility deal was an underhanded deal by our local officials and we immediately began our fight.

PETA have voiced their concerns at the monkey farm (PETA)

The animals are sold for medical testing (PETA)

"[The proposal] risks of waste and disease contaminating our aquifer, our wildlife, and our crops. The risk of contaminating our beautiful Flint River. Our farmers stand to lose everything, buyers are not going to buy from our farmers knowing that they’re only a few miles from a monkey breeding facility.

"The fact that everything our town has worked for will be no more, there won’t be visitors from all over coming to our beautiful downtown, to bass tournaments on our beautiful river, coming for tennis tournaments."

Hundreds of concerned residents and animal rights campaigners came together, along with PETA, The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organisation, including Dr Lisa Jones-Engel. She joined their group to help fight against the "greedy, unspeakably cruel, violent and deadly" industry.

Residents in Bainbridge have been packing out halls to fight the monkey farm

She told The Mirror: "Primate experimentation in the U.S. is part of the global wildlife trade in endangered species and it is paid for with taxpayer dollars. This industry is greedy, unspeakably cruel, violent, and deadly. PETA was approached by citizens in Bainbridge.

"They had read about the work we had been doing with the landowners and citizens in Brazoria, TX to stop Charles River Laboratories from building a monkey importation and quarantine facility on 500+ acres of environmentally sensitive land that the company had secretly purchased in March 2023."

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Residents from the No Monkey Farm group are objecting to the "alarming facility"

Dr Jones-Engel believes the chances of the industry "igniting the next global pandemic" will "vastly outweigh any theoretical benefits they bring to human healing."

She added: "If the industry is as innovative as it claims to be, it will stop these endangered monkey factory farm plans and bring its science and ethics into the 21st century by switching to human-relevant, non-animal research methods."

Kathleen Conlee, VP of animal research issues for the Humane Society of the United States, called the monkey farm proposal "alarming" and a "major step backward."

Hundreds of residents have packed out city council halls to object to the proposal

Residents are fighting back

She exclusively told TheMirror.com : "This proposed facility, or any facility that proposes breeding a massive number of primates for experimentation, is alarming. It is not only harmful to the individual animals but to the species, particularly as long-tailed macaques are considered endangered, with biomedical use by countries like the US a driving factor in their decline.

"This is a major step backward and we are at a fork in the road, we should be taking this opportunity to invest these resources in non-animal alternatives."

Residents are filing a lawsuit against the city of Bainbridge, Decatur County, Decatur County school district, Decatur County Board of Education, and Decatur County Board of Tax Assessors.

In addition to the legal complaint, locals are working alongside PETA who are asking the city to follow county officials' lead by taking a new vote against the monkey farm project. The city released a joint statement confirming to residents they've asked Safer Human Medicine to locate elsewhere.

Liam Buckler