AR-News: Monkey Business in Nepal

[Animalconcerns]

Online Petition

Posted from private e-mail by request:
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HELP OPPOSE THIS PLAN by signing the petition at
http://www.gopetition.com/online/3130.html.
[Note: Please sign the petition as soon as possible as it will be submitted
to the relevant officials next week.]

Additional information can be found at
http://www.ippl.org/01-03-27.html
http://www.nepalnews.com.np/ntimes/issue148/wildlife_2.htm

http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/78088/1/
Nepal Activists Say No Monkey Exports for Lab Tests
Keshab Poudel, OneWorld South Asia
02 February 2004

KATHMANDU, Feb 2 (OneWorld) - Animal rights activists are protesting against
an agreement between the Nepalese government and local nongovernmental
organization (NGO), the Natural History Society of Nepal (NHSN), to breed
thousands of rhesus monkeys, allegedly for supply to US laboratories.

According to the letter of intent, the government will deliver 150 monkeys
to the US as soon as NHSN establishes basic infrastructure to breed them.
Along with monkeys, the government has already permitted another NGO to
begin the commercial breeding of snakes.

Activists say the US annually requires over 14,000 monkeys for research.
They have demanded an immediate halt to the breeding and capture of animals
for export.

"This is not a conservation effort that will benefit the local community or
bio-diversity. This kind of breeding is purely for bio-medical research
where our monkeys undergo enormous suffering as they are observed for
physical and psychological responses to untested drugs," protests Prahlad
Yonzon, the president of Resources Himalaya, an NGO working to promote
wildlife conservation.

A slew of protests are pouring in from across the world. "We have received
more than 300 petitions which we will hand over to the Nepalese prime
minister and the minister for Forests and Soil Conservation," says Lucia de
Vries, a Kathmandu-based Belgian journalist who is mobilizing animal rights
groups in Nepal and abroad.

De Vries believes money is the only motivation. "The government can earn up
to US $300 per monkey for sale to American labs. We should not allow
Nepalese monkeys to die a slow and painful death there just for the sake of
enriching a few," she says.

Another key ally in the Save-the-Monkeys-Campaign is the International
Primate Protection League (IPPL), which has posted an appeal on its site
(www.ippl.org) to protest the plans to exploit Nepal's primates. It has also
requested the Nepalese government to prevent monkey-breeding labs from being
set up.

Animal rights activists express concern that Nepal's decision will open the
floodgates to export Nepalese monkeys and other animals to countries like
Japan and Germany, for medical research.

The decision comes at a time when research institutions are increasingly
finding alternatives to the use of non-human primates in research, which is
why a growing number of countries have banned such research.

De Vries, who is also involved with the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals/Nepal, alleges that the US is looking for lab monkeys to conduct
bio-terrorism experiments.

Reportedly, the West is scouring jungles in countries with weak legislation
and a willingness to sacrifice their precious wildlife, such as China,
Vietnam, Indonesia and, lately, Nepal.

NHNS expert Mukesh Chalise disagrees, "This is just propaganda by certain
vested interests. We applied to the ministry in accordance with Nepal's
rules and regulations. "Our intention is not to send our monkeys to death
but to use them for human benefits."

Government officials defend the agreement, saying it is in accordance with
Nepal's recent Working Policy on Wildlife Farming, Breeding and Research
2003. The policy stipulates that the government can permit breeding of
endangered species and other common species for commercial purposes.

"There are clear guidelines for breeding," says a senior official at the
Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.

Rhesus monkeys have lived alongside humans for centuries. Of late, they have
come into conflict with humans, leading to the trapping and killing of more
than 1,000 monkeys by farmers last year.

"But you cannot justify exporting monkeys on the ground that they are
destroying crops. People who live alongside monkeys have come to terms with
them," says Yonzon.

Rhesus macaques are preferred subjects for biomedical and behavioral
research primarily because of their willingness to breed in captivity. But
often monkeys are caged in solitary confinement and develop self-injurious
habits such as biting their own bodies, hair-pulling, and repetitive
motions.

Monkeys and snakes aren't the only animals under threat. Ministry of Forest
and Soil Conservation spokesperson Mohan Prasad Wagle says the government
will facilitate the commercial breeding of other wildlife species like
crocodiles, black bucks, pheasants, barking deer, spotted deer, sambar deer,
hog deer and various kinds of birds.

After issuing permission, the government will provide seed animals to firms
which will commercially exploit them. There are different price tags for
different animals, ranging from US$ 80 for all kinds of birds to US$ 500 for
crocodiles.

This isn't the first time the Nepal government has landed itself in
controversy. Following vehement criticism from different environmental and
animal rights groups, it had cancelled a similar proposal two years ago.

The monkey is widely worshipped by Hindus as a devotee of Lord Ram. Along
with Hindus, Nepal's large population of mountain people, who recently
celebrated their new year, have declared 2004 the Year of the Monkey.

Nepal's neighbor India banned the export of rhesus monkeys in 1977. China is
the biggest exporter of monkeys for bio-medical research, while the US is
the biggest importer of primates.

"The division of international programs of the Washington National Primate
Research Center (WaNPRC) was established in 1999 to help direct, strengthen,
and expand the Center's international collaborations. The WaNPRC currently
supports two long-standing international programs in Indonesia and Russia
and a third, recently established in Nepal," says De Vries.

Its Nepal program was formally established in 2001 in collaboration with
NHSN in Kathmandu. This program will support the breeding of rhesus monkeys
and facilitate collaborative research and educational/training opportunities
for Nepalese students and researchers, and assist with primate conservation
efforts in Nepal.

The IPPL reveals that the trade has increased greatly in recent years. In
1995, 9,158 primates were imported to the US.; in 2002 the figure was
18,856, an increase of 106 per cent.

Crab-eating macaques from Asia are by far the most heavily traded monkeys,
followed by rhesus and squirrel monkeys.

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