conflicted on this one. facility to breed monkeys for medical research. big enough t house 30k monkeys. Proposed for SW Georgia...thoughts? Plan for $400 million monkey-breeding facility in southwest Georgia draws protest | AP News BAINBRIDGE, Ga. (AP) — Some local residents and an animal-rights group are protesting plans for a monkey-breeding facility in southwest Georgia. Opponents on Tuesday urged the Bainbridge City Council to block plans by a company called Safer Human Medicine to build a $396 million complex that would eventually hold up to 30,000 long-tailed macaques that would be sold to universities and pharmaceutical companies for medical research. The company says it plans to employ up to 263 workers.
Look at this story above and tell me it’s a good idea. A chimp that had never seen the outside for 28 years. I think we need to move away from chimps, and in the rare cases they must use primates (only justifiable in limited circumstance) it needs to be smaller scale and the animal needs to be allowed to live out their life in a sanctuary after certain maximum time as a research specimen. But mass breeding 30,000 chimps probably overruns any type of sanctuary. So what happens? A massive breeding facility like this is almost guaranteed to be a future problem imo. I’d definitely be opposed.
These stories are so brutal on the psyche. The research done on animals no doubt saves human lives. So how much more valuable is a human life than an animal if we know the animal has emotions that cause it to suffer pain and trauma? No doubt chimps and apes feel very similar emotions to us. It's hard to justify using them in research of having them in captivity (unless its conservation.) But an animal like a rat is easier to justify, I guess because we don't view them as having the same capabilites emotionally as humans. At the same time we're willing to eat animals that have strong intelligence and emotion, like a pig. It's kind of all over the place.
Yeah it’s tough. I don’t bat an eye at killing a mosquito. I couldn’t imagine caging and experimenting on a chimp, as they seem (and are) so close to human. I don’t view monkeys as near in the same level of chimps, but I certainly wouldn’t squash one like a bug either.
Apparently you have something in common with this guy (it's the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele by the way).
Not directly related, but this thread reminded me of the story from the LA Times that was linked on Drudge yesterday. At least these monkeys appear to be having fun, but I imagine this sort of stuff isn't going to work out well for either the monkeys or the humans. Maybe they can at least help us fight the robots we're creating. Inside the world of the ultra-wealthy Mexicans who own exotic animals Emilia is a 2-year-old spider monkey who wears jeans, crop tops and Armani perfume. A popular TikTok account documents her busy life: trips to the spa, gym and church, as well as elaborate birthday parties for other pet monkeys, where she might cavort with friends in an inflatable bounce house and smash her face into a carrot cake. It is illegal in Mexico to own spider monkeys, which are critically endangered and trafficked from jungles in the country’s south. That hasn’t stopped people in the northern city of Culiacan, home to one of the world’s most powerful drug cartels and known for ostentatious displays of wealth. “So many people here have them,” said Zulma Ayala, a 34-year-old florist who was gifted Emilia two years ago. “It’s fashionable. It says: ‘I have the money to have a monkey.’”
Completely off-topic but decided to post it since the subject concerns monkeys. From our trip to Costa Rica 15 years ago. The photo was taken Manuel Antonio National Park .
