PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ALL ACTIVISTS AND EMAIL LISTS
Fellow Activists,
Our world faces tragedies every day. Many of them are very well known.
Hurricanes capture the headlines for days or even weeks. But many other
tragedies never make the headlines, unless someone takes action.
On any given day, as we go about our lives, many animals are suffering.
On any given day over 88,000 primates of different species are confined
within the cages of laboratories and the animal dealers who sell monkeys to
these same laboratories. This is not the whole picture, but only a single day
snapshot. Many more primates are moved through these labs during a year. Due
either to governmental ineptitude or deliberate omission, we do not have the
total picture. Our best estimate puts overall laboratory confinement of
primates in the vicinity of 120,000 for a year. The use of primate
experimentation appears to be increasing. It is very likely that it has
reached an all-time high in the US.
It is easy to forget these animals when we are faced with abuses that seem
more immediate, like the abandonment of 8000 animals within the labs of LSU.
But we cannot allow ourselves to forget the 88,000 primates who are in
labs each day, or the 32,000 others that will join them in a year's time, or
the 7000 - 10,000 who are sold to labs by animal dealers.
During that year 16% of these primates will die, either by design in
experimentation, or from other causes such as disease or negligence.
These 19,200 primates who die every year, have led lives of isolation,
abuse, and neglect. They are deliberately subjected to hunger, thirst,
disease, electric shock, severe confinement in restraint chairs, and addictive
drugs. Their lives of barren confinement often lead to insanity. In their
madness they strike out at themselves ripping out hair, chewing off fingers,
toes, or tails.
When they die their only epitaph is often "found dead in cage." They are
un-named and un-mourned.
They have nothing. No sunlight, no trees, no freedom.
We are their only hope.
It is easy to be lulled into inaction. Television screens flash images of
desolation at us, weather forecasts tell of potential new disasters, and film
footage reveals more deaths abroad.
But the primates locked in cages at over 200 US labs never see any of
this. They know only hunger, thirst, pain and mind-numbing boredom. They
want nothing more than their freedom.
If you care about these thousands of primates then I ask you to join
our battle to end their suffering. I implore you to stand with us now as we
work to end their suffering.
National Primate Liberation Week is October 15th - 23rd. You can sign up
to participate in this event at
http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/event-nplw-announce.html
We will help you find laboratories in your area to target. We can provide
literature for tabling. We will help you with contacting the media in your
city. We can provide you with information to use in meetings with your
elected officials.
Please join the fight by organizing protests, tabling, news conferences
and other public events in your area. Contact us by return email or telephone
for help. We have posted many photos, reports, fact sheets and other
informational resources about primate experimentation on our website at
www.saenonline.org
Thank you for your concern for animals,
Michael A. Budkie, A.H.T.,
Executive Director,
Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!
513-575-5517