Hundreds of monkeys held in Maryland after being denied entry to the US, source says

FREDERICK, Md. (WJLA) — Last December, WJLA exposed details in court records that revealed almost 1,000 monkeys were flown into the DMV over recent months. Some arrived on a private plane at Dulles Airport where PETA held a silent protest.

Dulles had no involvement in the shipment. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted eight people in Cambodia in connection to the shipments.

They're taken away from their families. They are forced to travel in these tiny crates for more than 30 hours so they can be sold to laboratories here in the United States,” said Dr. Alka Chandra, Vice President of Laboratory Investigations with PETA.

Those monkeys have not been declared illegal, but are being denied entry and are in limbo.

WJLA sources believe some are being housed at Charles River Labs in Frederick, Maryland.

In a statement, a spokeperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services told WJLA, "As a result of an ongoing investigation, the referenced shipments were refused clearance by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Disposition of shipments that are refused clearance varies based on circumstances, and we are unable to comment further on these shipments at this time.”

“The macaque is the monkey we are talking about,” said Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, PETA’s Senior Science Advisor for Primate Experimentation.

Dr. Jones-Engel believes the U.S. only has three choices. Return them to Cambodia, kill them, or PETA's preferred choice: release all to Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary.

This is a lot of monkeys," she notes, "and sanctuaries in the U.S. have never even contemplated this type of rescue."

PETA and Born Free USA have sent this letter to Charles River Laboratories CEO James Foster and the company’s 10 biggest shareholders asking for an urgent meeting to decide the fate of 1,000 endangered monkeys.

PETA said the National Institute of Health’s Animal Center in Dickerson, Md. currently has a contract with Charles River Labs to manage some of the monkeys.

“What do you say to people who say, 'Why don’t we just ship them back to Cambodia and release them back into the wild?' Why can’t we do that, do you think?” asked WJLA Investigator Scott Taylor.

These monkeys can’t go back to Cambodia. They can’t go back into the wild. They are from all over. The indication is that they have been plucked out of the forest from all over Southeast Asia,” said Dr. Jones-Engel.

Charles River Labs, which has not been criminally charged with any wrongdoing, tells WJLA its shipments are not from the same Cambodian shipper currently under investigation.

If PETA is granted custody of the 1,000 monkeys, they will end up on 175 acres in south Texas owned by Born Free USA.

Charles River Labs further tells WJLA it is actively seeking to work with federal authorities to develop and implement new procedures to reinforce confidence that the monkeys it imports from Cambodia are purpose-bred.