http://invitro.org.il/node/87

Mazor Farm - Call for Action

To view "Israel against Mazor Farm" video

The Mazor breeding farm currently holds 1,000 long tailed macaque monkeys. Some of these monkeys were wild caught on the island of Mauritius, while others were born in captivity. Mazor is a link in the chain of cruel trade in which monkeys are forcibly removed from their natural environment then flown thousands of miles in small cages to laboratories or breeding facilities. These animals will have been separated from their family groups, the young brutally separated from their mothers.

Mazor is little more than a monkey breeding factory, whose manager considers the monkeys to be "production units" whose sole purpose is to increase profits, through the sale of the offspring to laboratories. To further increase profitability, the young are separated early from their mothers, allowing these females to mate as soon as possible. Early forced separation is traumatic to both the young and the mothers. These mothers will cry out and cling in desperation to the bars of their cages in a vain attempt to look for their young. The young who have been moved to a separate enclosure, will in turn look for their mothers and display signs of severe distress. Not all of these animals will survive this difficult transition and some will die.

Those who survive will have their chests tattooed with a four digit serial number and then be sold to laboratories in Europe, the US and Israel. Every year, hundreds of these terrified young monkeys will be forced to travel huge distances in tiny crates to faraway destinations, to a fate worse than death, which awaits them. Each of these "units" will fill the pockets of the breeding farm manager to the tune of $2800

A fate worse than death

The vast majority of these young monkeys will be sold to laboratories that specialize in toxicology (poisoning tests). Among the clients of Mazor are Covance (Germany), the Swedish centre for Biological studies, as well as laboratories in the UK, Belgium, Italy and the US. The monkeys will be housed in miserable conditions and will undergo toxicity tests in which they will be injected or force fed with drugs and other chemicals. Most of the animals will die during these tests, and those who survive will be killed at the end of the experiment.

Most of the monkeys sold to laboratories within Israel will undergo invasive brain experiments.. These experiments involve water deprivation, immobilization in a primate chair for extended periods of time, surgical removal of the top of the skull, and implantation of equipment in the skull and the brain itself. These types of experiment typically last several years, after which most of the monkeys will be killed. In rare instances, individual monkeys are released and allowed to undergo rehabilitation in sanctuaries. This is a relatively recent phenomenon and is due in large part to public outcry

Call for Action!

Behind Closed Doors, together with other animal rights' groups, called on the Minister of Environmental Protection to withdraw the Mazor trade licence (import and export). The Minister is currently studying our written proposal and is expected shortly to announce his decision.

We would like to ask you to please write a polite message to the Minister, making clear your views that the Mazor monkey breeding farm must be closed down:

Gilad Erdan, Minister of Environmental Protection

sar@sviva.gov.il

fax +972-2-6535958

Postal address: Kanfey Nesharim 5, P.O. Box 34033, Jerusalem 95464, Israel.