Posted on 01/02/2024 2:32:39 PM PST by billorites
Texans bought land in Brazoria County looking for solitude. Then they heard about the monkeys.
Last year, a $12 billion biomedical research firm quietly bought more than 500 acres of land in a sleepy corner of the county and shared a plan to house up to 43,200 monkeys on the property.
Now, the neighbors want them out.
“How much racket does 43,000 monkeys make?” asked Jason Robert, a shrimper who owns about 1,100 acres near the plot. “I’m sure they’re not quiet.”
“I thought this would be a place to get away from everything,” said John Stern, a retired veterinarian who built a retreat on about 900 acres for his family and grandchildren. “Now a monkey farm is my neighbor.”
Charles River Laboratories , the new neighbor, housed nearly 19,000 monkeys in half a dozen states in fiscal year 2022, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture records. The company, based in Wilmington, Mass., sells the animals for research and, under contract to universities, biotech and pharma companies, runs tests on the animals in its own facilities.
Primates and other research animals are a vital part of biomedical enterprise, enabling research on human disease and treatments. Primate models have been essential to understanding the virus that causes AIDS and in creating medicines, and in the pandemic, Covid-19 vaccines were tested in monkeys before approval.
But Stern and other neighbors, concerned about their property values, worry the monkeys will spread disease and question how dead animals and animal waste will be handled.
When research monkeys are brought into the country, they are quarantined until cleared by a government veterinarian. In the past five years, quarantine facilities, which are regulated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have reported diseases such as tuberculosis, salmonella and shigella
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
😂😂👍🏻👍🏻
I’m thinking of accidents. Like when zoos accidentally lose tigers or lions.
Geeze, I can only imagine. About a mile away from my compound is what was a multi-thousand acre cattle ranch that was recently bought out by one of the big commercial hunting resort / hunting equipment sales outfits, and they brought in a large pack of hunting hounds that NEVER shut up.
Monkeys gotta be worse.
Finally, a use for democrats.
Were relocated to Texas in 1972 and they escaped/turned loose.
Monkeys used in research are kept indoors. You can be in the same building and never hear them.
However, not as much can be said about the PETA activists that someone invited to come protest. They are noisy and destructive and, between dropping trash on the ground and stomping the vegetation at the site of protest, leave much environmental degradation in their wake.
There is this excerpt from the WSJ article, "Alternatives to testing in animals have been developed, such as AI models or cellular constructs in dishes, but science can’t yet do without monkeys, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said in a report issued in 2023." Animals rights activists love to talk about how evil scientists are in choosing to do research in animals rather than using AI or cells. The problem is that you can't extrapolate very well what happens in a petri dish to what happens in an intact organism. There is a lot that can be done without animals, but the research always reaches a point where using animals is necessary.
The monkeys were there when they bought their property. I have no sympathy.
Is this YOUR “research” lab??
😂
In Ireland, they are burning migrant centers.
Oops! Wrong thread (maybe?)…
Wait until PETA or Earth Liberation Front let them all out some night.
My mistake, I thought they were speaking of Harris County.
Not my Monkey...NOT my Circus!
If I remember my history, monkeys have escaped several such facilities in the US. In SW Missouri and Florida.
When this happens the locals often feed them. The authorities, however, contract with special hunting teams to go in at night with suppressed night scope rifles, kill and remove quietly all they can find.
Cities do the same when there is an overabundance of deer in an area.
I looked at buying a piece of property that had been an alligator farm in north central Texas. When it went bankrupt, the owner opened the gates and let them go. The neighbors hated the past, present, and future owners. I passed on it
“Hot Zone”....I rest my case.
Is this an American bio-lab?
Sure sounds like it.
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