Kenya Airways Vows to Stop Shipping Monkeys to the US

Kenya Airways (KQ) has confirmed it will stop transporting monkeys from Mauritius to the US once the existing contract expires. 

The national carrier has been flying the primates from the Indian Ocean Island to the US for laboratory experiments.

KQ Chairman Michael Joseph told Business Daily that the airline will cease airlifting monkeys and other wild animals used in scientific research when the current contract expires at the end of February.

“We will not renew the contract that expires at the end of February,” said Joseph.

The announcement comes days after a truck transporting the long-tailed Macaques monkeys bred on a farm in Mauritius crashed in Danville, Pennsylvania last week, sparking criticism from animal rights activists in the US.

Kenya Airways had shipped 100 experimental lab monkeys from Mauritius to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York last week. From there, the monkeys were placed on a truck that later crashed on Route 54 near I-80 in rural Pennsylvania on Friday before some of them escaped, prompting residents to join police in their search in nearby woods.

The shipment was heading to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-approved quarantine facility and laboratory in Florida.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has since opened a probe into the incident amid protests from animal rights activists.

US animal rights lobby PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) welcomed KQ’s decision to “do away with this cruel and heinous business.”

“Monkeys belong in the wild, not in laboratories, where their most basic needs, including home, family, and community, are better met," the lobby said.