If you guessed 25,703, you’re exactly right! I’ve got some more statistics for you, too, because I wanted to provide some concrete numbers to give a bit of context to this photo, which recently won The National Geographic International Photography Contest. The deeply disturbing image, which shows caged monkeys awaiting their fate at a medical laboratory in Hubei Province, China, depicts one small part of a nightmare that continues every day for thousands of primates who are used in barbaric, wasteful experiments. Some stats:

China, where the award-winning photo was taken, was the source of nearly 58 percent of all primates imported into the U.S.

More than 46 percent of all primates brought to this country were imported by Covance. Covance was also responsible for all 25 of the largest shipments of primates (200 or more) into the U.S.

Just three companies – huge, multi-national contract testing organizations that conduct animal experiments for profit – account for more than 75 percent of primate imports for 2007:

1. Covance: 11,935 (46.43 percent)
2. Charles River: 6,140 (23.89 percent)
3. SNBL: 2,400 (9.34 percent)

Close to 98 percent of all primates imported into this country are macaque monkeys, like those shown in the photo. These monkeys are imported strictly for vivisection.

And the photo itself is a doozy.

Photo from Covance Investigation

I know y'all have heard of Covance before. We've talked about Covance many times, whether it's on the blog, on StopAnimalTests.com, or in one of the many PETA action alerts urging the company to stop its heinous animal tests.

The AP story points out that human waste and animal waste from factory farms contaminates water with drugs, but back in July 2006, PETA discovered that animal laboratories are also contaminating water with pharmaceuticals. Our report showed that at places like Covance, animals are pumped full of massive quantities of test drugs that still haven’t even been approved by the FDA. The animals pass some of the drugs out of their bodies when they pee and poop and this waste is hosed down the drain–toxic drugs and all–and ends up in our water supply.

Now with all the attention on water safety, we’re doing our best to convince Chandler, Arizona (where we've been working with activists on this issue for some time now) to not let a Covance facility set up shop in their city.

Check out this awesome letter that our senior researcher Alka sent to Chandler, Arizona, and check out our official PETA report on this issue too.

This could be a great victory for animals if we can convince residents and government officials in Chandler, Arizona, not to allow this hellhole in their city! Thanks to Alka and the anti-vivisection team for all their hard work!

Love,

Christine <3

Photo from Covance Investigation

I know y'all have heard of Covance before. We've talked about Covance many times, whether it's on the blog, on StopAnimalTests.com, or in one of the many PETA action alerts urging the company to stop its heinous animal tests.

The AP story points out that human waste and animal waste from factory farms contaminates water with drugs, but back in July 2006, PETA discovered that animal laboratories are also contaminating water with pharmaceuticals. Our report showed that at places like Covance, animals are pumped full of massive quantities of test drugs that still haven’t even been approved by the FDA. The animals pass some of the drugs out of their bodies when they pee and poop and this waste is hosed down the drain–toxic drugs and all–and ends up in our water supply.

Now with all the attention on water safety, we’re doing our best to convince Chandler, Arizona (where we've been working with activists on this issue for some time now) to not let a Covance facility set up shop in their city.

Check out this awesome letter that our senior researcher Alka sent to Chandler, Arizona, and check out our official PETA report on this issue too.

This could be a great victory for animals if we can convince residents and government officials in Chandler, Arizona, not to allow this hellhole in their city! Thanks to Alka and the anti-vivisection team for all their hard work!

Love,

Christine <3

Here’s a taste of what PETA UK’s been doing with the money they received from Covance Inc. following the dismissal of Covance’s lawsuit against them. Karma’s a bitch, sometimes.

Caught on tape: In 2005, PETA sent an undercover investigator into Covance’s primate labs

A little while back, we received shipping documents indicating that 22 5-month-old beagles had been shipped from New York to Tokyo in the cargo holds of Japan Airlines planes. More disturbing still, we learned that the company shipping the beagles was none other than animal-experimentation conglomerate and notorious animal torturer, Covance Inc. In case you're not aware of our history with Covance, this is the same company that was revealed to have been hideously abusing monkeys and other animals after an 11-month PETA undercover investigation in 2005.

The company—whose reaction to the 2005 investigation was to use its lawyers to try and strongarm PETA and PETA Europe into removing the footage from the Web—was eventually cited for numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act. In a separate case, five Covance facilities were cited by the USDA for instances of animal abuse, including deliberately starving a dog and depriving her of veterinary care. These guys are the world's largest breeders of dogs for experimentation, and you can bet that there were more horrors in store for the dogs made to suffer through the 28-hour-long trip in a Japan Airlines cargo hold. A Covance promotional pamphlet recently obtained by PETA shows dozens of beagles in rows of cages, with the tagline "Helping to bring miracles to market sooner."

Thanks to Covance, it's too late for these particular beagles, but we're asking Japan Airlines to follow the lead of Air Canada and other compassionate airlines by refusing to transport dogs and other animals to vivisection laboratories in future. No responsible business should associate with monsters like Covance, and we're working very hard to ensure that Japan Airlines gets that message. If you'd like to help out, you can write to the airline's CEO through this form.

It's not going to bankrupt Covance—torturing animals in experiments is big business—but this is a big black eye for them, and it's a vindication of PETA Europe's work to expose the callous disregard for suffering that helps Covance's execs sleep at night. But today, the New Jersey-based animal-testing company paid PETA Europe $290,000 following a British court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the company to stop them from publicizing undercover video footage from a Covance lab here in Virginia. As PETA President Ingrid Newkirk puts it,

“Instead of spending a small fortune to try to cover up its abuses, Covance could have used the money to improve the hideous conditions for animals in its U.S. prisons. This company is a monkey’s Guantanamo Bay.”

How d'ya like them apples, Covance? To mark PETA Europe's big victory for free speech, here's the video that Covance really, really doesn't want people to see. It should come as no surprise that the footage is extremely disturbing, but—as the British courts have just demonstrated—it's vitally important that companies like Covance not be allowed to get away with trying to keep their dirty little secrets from the public.