Campaign News In late 2010, coffee shop Costa Coffee aired a puerile TV advert featuring sixteen monkeys of different species. The monkeys were supplied by the same company ADI exposed several years ago when a keeper was filmed pinning down a screaming mandrill whilst he forced back in a prolapsed rectum – the keeper commenting that it was a result of the monkeys walking on their hind legs (the Costa ad featured a mandrill). The same company that misled the media about how a lion used in a Conservative Party advert was being kept. Prior to the launch of the advert – which had nothing to do with their product but was simply a crass one-line gag – we urged the company not to air it, but to no avail. We therefore produced leaflets and supporters protested and sent postcards of complaint to Costa. Costa’s Chief Executive, Andy Harrison, commented: “It seems to me that only a commitment never to use the advertisement again could fully satisfy those who have objected to this commercial. I cannot give this commitment but I can further confirm to you that we would always take steps to avoid animal suffering or exploitation in every aspect of our business.” There’s plenty of other coffee houses out there that aren’t making performing monkeys the butt of their jokes. Please boycott Costa. At one point, Bergman complained; “This primate issue is annoying but we are fully committed to the concept and work of the project. I don’t understand how folks expect space research to progress otherwise”. Bergman had also noted “The subjects we will use will live out their natural lives and be available to NASA for further study, should that be desired. Indeed, that is a notable strength of the project design.” Experimentation without end had been planned for these poor monkeys. On the same day a Johnson Space Centre employee reassured Bergman about the funding for his project; “know that you have HUGE NASA support…But being NASA, HQ wants to proceed as cautiously and politically correct [sic] as possible – comes with the territory of a federal agency…So know that we are doing everything we can to get the award out to you.” In September ADI attended a reception at the US Congress organised by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine with April Evans calling for NASA funding to be redirected from the monkey tests. That night the NASA ADI & NAVS
Authorization Act of 2010, passed the House of Representatives, disappointingly without the original House language requiring “justification and rationale for human primates". Despite this setback, we pressed on, then NASA finally decided to halt the tests. This leaves Russia isolated in its use of monkeys in space experiments. Supporters will recall the horrific photographs we obtained from inside the laboratory in Abkhazia showing the monkeys restrained during the experiments and living in tiny, barren cages. Like the NASA tests, the Roscosmos experiments are also aimed at enabling a mission to Mars. In October we launched the campaign in Russia with VITA, a non-profit animal protection organisation based in Moscow, urging the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) not to perform the experiments. We continue to press the space agencies around the world to abandon all animal experiments.
guinness World Records has dropped elephant polo statistics from the record books, “in line with our policy not to accept or recognise any records based on the killing or harming of animals, this includes fox hunting and bull fighting”. The work of LDF was showcased at the British Science Festival held in Birmingham last year, and was a great success. This years event, themed "Exploring New Worlds" will be in Bradford. CITeS quotas published. The CITES 2011 national export quotas have been published. DRC, Togo and Tanzania have all established quotas for trade in live Appendix II primates. An international treaty will set the first-ever limit on the number of polar bears that native people in Northwest Alaska can harvest and also legalise polar bear hunting in Russia; the first time in decades. The Russia-U.S. commission agreed to let native subsistence hunters in each country kill 29 bears. Chimp meat has been discovered on the menu in restaurants in the UK after raids by trading standards. Backstreet restaurants and market stalls in the Midlands are believed to be selling chimpanzee meat. Canada’s fight against a european ban on seal products has moved to a new level. Canada’s Federal Fisheries Minister says the government will take action at the WTO over the European Union's ban on seal products.
The Animal Defender & Campaigner
l
Spring/Summer 2011
7