Endangered Monkeys, Corporate Crimes, No Accountability: U.S. Reportedly Set to Restore Cambodian Monkey Trade Despite Trafficking Scandal

According to recent reports, a whistleblower has revealed that Charles River Laboratories — the notorious animal testing supplier that was embroiled in a scandal that led the U.S. to suspend monkey imports from Cambodia in 2023 — persuaded the federal government to reopen the Cambodian monkey pipeline.

The original suspension stemmed from a federal investigation showing that Charles River had imported more than 1,000 monkeys they could not prove were not illegally caught from the wild. This case was only one part of a broader Department of Justice investigation into the Cambodian monkey trade that uncovered widespread smuggling, forged documents, and the trafficking of wild-caught macaques into U.S. labs under false claims that the animals were captive bred.

A separate five-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigation found that thousands of macaques shipped to U.S. laboratories had been kidnapped from national parks and protected areas in Cambodia. These endangered animals were torn from their families and funneled into a system that subjects them to torturous experiments, prolonged suffering, and death.

Despite these findings, former Trump Interior Secretary David Bernhardt — who oversaw part of that investigation and is fully aware of its disturbing findings — has now been seen touring Cambodian monkey farms with Charles River’s CEO. This raises serious concerns that political influence is being used to help Charles River and Cambodian monkey traders resume the very practices that led to the suspension in the first place.

This alarming development coincides with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission closing its own investigation into Charles River’s sourcing of non-human primates with no enforcement action, despite the company’s well-documented dark past. Charles River’s stock continues to rise, with its revenue now exceeding $1 billion.

All this seems to indicate that Charles River has not only gotten away with its past crimes, but that the United States is poised to reward the company by lifting the suspension on imports from Cambodia — even as long-tailed macaques were reaffirmed as an endangered species just last month.

This is unacceptable.

Because of this deeply troubling news, Species Unite is reopening our petition demanding that the United States permanently ban all monkey imports from Cambodia. If you haven’t already, please sign our petition opposing the Cambodian monkey trade today. 

To learn more, watch our documentary 30,000 Monkeys in Our Backyard, which sheds light on the illegal trafficking of wild macaques as well as the grassroots fight of a small Georgia community standing up to the testing industry.