Florida monkey importer charged after lab animal dumped at Miami waste facility
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission charged the head of a biomedical research company with the escape of a monkey. Photo: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images
After a discarded lab monkey was found alive in a Miami waste facility in February, Florida wildlife officials have charged the head of the biomedical research company responsible.
Why it matters: Animal welfare group PETA says the blunder by Southwest Florida-based BC US endangered the monkey and threatened public health because it violated federal animal quarantine requirements.
Driving the news: The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission charged BC US president Mark Bushmitz with a second-degree misdemeanor for violating a law on the escape of captive wildlife.
- PETA believes this is the first time an importer in the animal experimentation industry has been charged for this type of offense.
- The charge carries a 60-day jail sentence and/or a $500 fine. An FWC spokesperson confirmed the charge.
Catch up quick: BC US, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, houses and quarantines long-tailed macaques bred in Mauritius by its sister company, Bioculture Mauritius, and breeds its own monkeys as well.
- An FWC incident report obtained by PETA says BC US received a shipment of 300 imported monkeys on Jan. 28 at its Immokalee headquarters.
- When employees emptied the wooden crates carrying the animals, they failed to notice that a monkey was still inside one of the crates before dumping it into a large biomedical waste container.
- Five days later, the monkey was found at the Stericycle biomedical waste facility in Miami, where it got loose, per the incident report.
BC US says it euthanized the monkey "out of an abundance of caution," because existing primate colonies must remain free of specific bacteria, although the monkey didn't show any sign of disease.
Meanwhile, BC US was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the same incident earlier this month, WINK News reported.
- The federal agency also cited the company for a critical violation of the Animal Welfare Act following the deaths of two monkeys exposed to extreme heat in January, per the TV station.