Monkey farming in Hendry: Boon or bust?

Masked, gloved and sheathed in scrubs, the woman steps toward the chain-link, a red-tipped pole in her left hand.

"Target."

A small primate paw reaches through the mesh to grasp the pole, which the woman withdraws. Fishing a treat from her apron, she hands it to the monkey, presses a clicker and says, "Good boy," as one might to a dog. The aim: train this long-tailed macaque to be what the industry calls a "willing worker" for biomedical research. Such poles can be attached to collars so the animals can be more easily handled.

The interaction is businesslike, with both parties alert, watchful — each clearly expecting something from the other.

A similar relationship exists between Hendry County officials and the growing monkey industry they've embraced. Over the past decade, the 38,000-person county has grown, quietly, to become the primate breeding capital not just of Florida, but of the United States, with four farms capable of housing at least 10,000 animals.

But that quiet is over.

Residents and activists have begun raising voices and sharply questioning Hendry's monkey businesses. With protests, letter-writing campaigns, federal complaints and an ongoing lawsuit, they seek to end what they call an inhumane perversion of the county's agricultural heritage and a serious threat to property values and public safety.

The county itself appears to be doing some investigative soul-searching. Officials have filed complaints against its two largest and oldest facilities, Primate Products and the Mannheimer Foundation, the first time they have taken such actions against businesses the county initially welcomed.

Scientists argue the animals these farms supply are key to lifesaving pharmaceutical research. Polio wouldn't have been cured without the use of primates, which have also helped develop drugs for AIDS, Ebola, epilepsy and malaria.

Here, on the agricultural fringe of the northern Everglades, Primate Products houses and trains the creatures essential to that research. It recently gave The News-Press a behind-the-scenes tour to photograph and video its operations, the first time journalists had been allowed such a visit.

The company takes two species of macaques — long-tailed or cynomolgus and rhesus — on consignment from breeding farms in China, Cambodia, Mauritius or Vietnam. They're flown into Chicago or New York, then trucked to Miami, where they're held for a seven-week quarantine, during which they have three TB tests, get physical exams and have a variety of other screens done before the CDC allows them to be released to the Hendry facility.

"They don't really belong to us," says veterinarian Jeff Rowell, the company president. "They belong to the farm the animal originated from. When we make a sale — let's say it's 10 animals — a percentage of that goes to the farm ... and then for all our troubles of doing the importation, of keeping the animals and finding the end user, we get a percentage of that sale as well."

Prices vary, but Rowell says each monkey fetches between $3,200 and $3,400, depending on the size of the order. "We don't do zoos, we don't do roadside parks, we don't do private owners. That'd be getting away from the mission, which is to service public health," he says.

Conscience and controversy

New York Times best-selling author and multimedia journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell, who's led the charge against the Hendry facilities, points out many countries are phasing out primate research and turning instead to other methods and computer models. "I cannot sleep at night thinking of what these highly intelligent, highly social and sensitive primates endure for experimentation that the western world is turning away from, leaving the U.S. as the backwater," she said.

While the evolving alternatives are encouraging, says Jacquie Calnan, president of the Virginia-based nonprofit industry group Americans for Medical Progress, those alternatives were brought about only by insight gained through animal research.

"Believe me, no one wants to end animal research more than I do, but the fact is, it's still absolutely necessary until we can develop other models that are predictive of what will happen in humans," Calnan said, noting that animal research contributed to every Nobel Prize in medicine for the last three decades, much of it conducted on primates.

For Calnan, that research has great personal significance as well: She has a form of epilepsy controlled with drugs developed through animal research. "Without it, I would have uncontrollable seizures," she said.

Yet until recently, Hendry's primate companies have not pointed out such successes to the public, remaining largely silent about their work.

That secrecy is at the heart of a lawsuit alleging county officials approved the newest facility, known as Primera, in violation of Florida's Sunshine Law, with no public input. The county argues it was a routine staff matter, but residents and activists say there's nothing routine about approving a facility to house thousands of primates on Caloosahatchee tributary Bedman Creek, across which lies Lehigh Acres and Alva.

"Are you kidding?" asks Billy Stephens, who lives near the site and is one of the plaintiffs. "Of course they didn't want us to know, because they knew we'd all raise hell. What about our investment? Who's going to want to buy a house next to a huge monkey farm?"

Officials from three of the Hendry companies — Primera, Bioculture and the Mannheimer Foundation's Haman Ranch — have ignored or rebuffed The News-Press' repeated emailed requests for face-to-face conversations and visits, and didn't return repeated phone calls.

Only Rowell has not remained silent. Unlike his primate-breeding colleagues, he has distinguished himself for his willingness to engage and discuss what he does. Nor does he back down from difficult conversations, such as his company's sale of aborted C-section monkey fetuses for stem cell research at biomedical labs. On the contrary, he's proud of it.

"Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal cord injuries — these are real issues in which progress was made as a result of stem cell therapies," he says. "When it began in the 1950s, they used human fetuses. And there's nothing that's been more controversial than obtaining stem cells from human fetuses.

"So when there are restrictions on using human stem cells, (researchers) go with a model they can use. And primate stem cells are not as politically charged as going in and taking aborted fetuses. That's got a really nasty ring to it – especially in Florida. Whenever you use the word abortions, naturally people are going to cringe. It almost sounds obscene. So the fact that we were collecting fetuses for that research? That was an important part of this company. We were providing an important resource."

And does that fall within Primate Products' permits? "No doubt," Rowell said.

Activists disagree. With support from Velez-Mitchell, nonprofits and seasoned out-of-state protesters, they've rallied a small-but-growing corps of Southwest Floridians while spreading the word nationally.

"History is filled with people who have felt just fine about committing morally reprehensible acts," Velez-Mitchell said. "Every social justice movement has had to expose their denial, self-delusion, rationalization and arrogance. Indeed, that is the only way society evolves."

For people like Gary Serignese, of Boca Raton, the issue transcends zoning quarrels; it's about freeing animals. Serignese is a leader of South Florida Smash HLS, an animal-rights group that opposes any primate research. (HLS stands for Huntingdon Life Sciences, a lab they originally targeted.)

"The monkeys imprisoned at these facilities, like all animals, have a right to live free from human abuse and exploitation. Their natural ability to feel pain, to suffer in ways comparable to humans, makes it morally wrong to hurt them and kill them. And a tragic death is the outcome of these heartless facilities," he wrote in an email. "The monkeys will be cut open, or poisoned, or mutilated ... These monkey facilities must be shut down."

So far, more than 15,000 have signed an online petition sponsored by Animal Defenders International opposing the Primera site, and animal rights bloggers have vigorously taken up the cause.

One of those is Donny Moss, of theirturn.net, who calls Rowell's defense of the fetal sales dishonest and misleading. "Rowell knows that his breeding facility isn't zoned for surgery, but he attempts to dismiss that infraction by stating that PPI no longer collects tissue samples," Moss wrote in an email. "Does the discontinuation of the surgeries... negate the fact that they were done in the first place — on hundreds, if not thousands of occasions?"

He and others have questioned the industry's fiscal relationship with the county, calling it conflict of interest. SoFloAg, which is building the Primera site, bought a $400 brick in support of LaBelle's downtown revitalization. It also gave $1,000 to Hendry's Economic Development Council over three years, says EDC president Gregg Gillman. Given the council's $630,000 budget over that period, the amount is "so negligible it's kind of silly," Gillman said. He also points out that the company received no county or state incentives to move to Hendry. None of the other three primate companies have donated to the council or the city.

Why the secrecy?

SoFloAg has only a Lehigh Acres UPS storefront address. The operation is managed by an entity called P2B2 LLC, in turn managed by something called XII LLC, for which no individual names come up in a search of Florida Division of Corporations records. Search to see who's behind P2B2, and you discover its manager is another LLC, XII, at the same UPS store address: 5781 Lee Blvd. XII seems to be inactive and traces back to Sun City Center, an age-restricted senior community south of Tampa. P2B2 is also the manager for Primera Science Center, which is based at the same address.

Florida law allows companies to hide investors and shield them from some liability using LLCs.

Hendry's Administrator Charles Chapman says the county doesn't delve into the day-to-day operations of any of its businesses. "We're a small, fiscally constrained county and we just don't have the resources," he said.

Indeed, Hendry's unemployment rate (8 percent) often leads the state and 26.7 percent of its residents live below the poverty line. Primate Products' starting pay is $12 per hour, Rowell says, and the company employs 30 people. Primera told the county it would create about 50 jobs. All told, the county's primate facilities contributed $40,194 in property taxes to the county's $61.3 million budget last year.

Moss also wonders about the potential impact of escaped monkeys on Southwest Florida's environment. "The Everglades, which is nearby, is already under attack by non-native species like pythons. If monkeys escape" he writes, "they could easily breed and compromise the fragile ecosystem. It's a real risk."

What concerns Lehigh Acres Fire Commissioner Linda Carter is the risk to emergency responders. Because Lehigh's fire stations are closer to the Primera site than any of Hendry's, and because the two counties help each other out, her firefighters and medics could very well find themselves face-to-face with panicked primates.

Macaques, the main species at Hendry's facilities, can transmit diseases including Ebola, tuberculosis and a deadly form of herpes.

"Hendry County has not provided us any plans for fires, floods or hurricanes," Carter said.

Lee County spokeswoman Betsy Clayton said that though the county has all-hazards emergency response plans, "The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is our partner agency that deals with exotics, and we would look to them for guidance on responding to this kind of emergency." FWC did immediately not return calls requesting response plans.

Caged versus wild

Rowell is more sanguine, pointing out his animals are health-checked and quarantined.

There hasn't been an escape in three years, he says, and when one does happen, "Their biggest concern is to get back in the cage… Typically, if one does get out beyond the confines of the cage, rarely — and I mean rarely — do they ever leave. They're comfortable with the wire. They're not comfortable being in trees, not comfortable being on the ground. They're very insecure and they want to be where they're accustomed to being, and that's within the confines of that cage."

On the topic of cages, Rowell insists they're a much safer place for monkeys than the jungle.

"Animals in the wild — it's no picnic," he says. "They suffer from starvation. They suffer from water deprivation. They suffer from poaching. They are subject to predators. There's a whole array of problems. Longevity? Maybe six years, if that long. Here, where you're providing healthcare, food, water and all the essentials, 15 years is not uncommon."

He also admits captivity can be dangerous if there's social upheaval in a group, which is why his company employs a behaviorist to minimize that risk. "But you can never eliminate it entirely," he said.

In a tiled treatment room a sutured female rests in a cage. She was removed from her group after a fight left her with bruises and a bitten-up arm.

"If there's excessive trauma in a cage, (behaviorists) do various things to mitigate that. There's also a condition called SIB — self-injurious behavior — where an animal might exhibit injuries to itself as a result of someone (a more dominant animal) being in the room," Rowell says. "So what the behaviorist might do is order increased enrichment. That takes their mind off the activities of the day."

He looks at the stitched-up female and shakes his head.

"Now see, you can take a picture of that animal and you can tell a bad story or you can tell a good story. You can do whatever you want with that picture and that's why we're a little sensitive."

Damning ammunition

Rowell's no stranger to controversy. Before coming to Primate Products, he directed the University of Louisiana's New Iberia Research Center, the frequent subject of Humane Society and activist complaints as well as the occasional government investigation into animal deaths. In 2012, he left. "I took an offer of the opportunity to retire by the university… I can assure you my retirement had nothing to do with those events," though he knows activists see it differently.

Sometimes, those differing views lead to violence.

Rowell hasn't been attacked, but plenty of his colleagues have, with car bombs, death threats and Molotov cocktails.

The academic journal, Nature Neuroscience, has reported on harassment campaigns against primate dealers and researchers including "demonstrations at their homes and pamphlets distributed to their neighbors, as well as threatening phone calls and emails. Elsewhere, targets of similar protests have had abuse shouted through bullhorns or painted on their homes or cars, doorbells rung repeatedly, and windows smashed or doors broken down while family members were in the house. Animal-rights websites post the names of scientists' spouses and children, along with their ages and schools."

Such protests are "are a powerful way to exercise one's First Amendment right (and) assign personal responsibility to the wrongdoers," said Smash's Serignese. "They point a social finger at the perpetrators, preventing them from hiding behind their job title. The fault is theirs. And they often need help to understand that fully."

Personal attacks aside, activists also twist words and photos in service to their goals, Rowell says.

Take the case of some widely circulated gruesome photos taken at Primate Products showing primates missing chunks of skull. The images caused many online posters to conclude the monkeys were victims of some perverse experimental surgery, but Rowell calls it a classic example of information being used out of context. They actually were fight wounds from which the animals were recovering.

"The clinician working with them was actually proud that the wounds were granulating in and (the photos) showing a natural, healthy process of healing and he was actually quite proud of the photographs." But he was hacked and the photos got out. "The photos were documentation of healing, but instead, they were used against the company."

The companies' own mandatory reports to the USDA about accidents often provide activists damning ammunition.

"A year ago, we had a case where three animals were accidentally electrocuted. There was a heater, on one of those rare cold nights, and unfortunately the cord was placed too close," Rowell said. "The animal reached in, brought the cord into the cage, chewed on the cord and three animals, as a result of that, died."

Within 24 hours, the company reported it to the USDA and began a self-assessment. Even so, the incident fueled a federal complaint by Ohio-based activist Michael Budkie, who runs the nonprofit Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!

Rowell dismisses his actions as self-serving. "He's a businessman. He runs a website, and the idea is you're to donate dollars for his efforts – that's what he does for a business, so the more controversy he can stir up, the more that extremists will go to his site and the more money they will donate."

Protecting and speaking for animals is a passion, Budkie says, one that began after he left a laboratory job in horror at what he witnessed every day.

"Despite what these folks like Rowell want to tell you, they're protecting their bottom line," Budkie says. "There's no such thing as a way of caring for and keeping non-human primates in a lab setting that's anything close to humane – it's just not possible. These monkeys have no idea what's going on, why this is being done to them. All they're guilty of is being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many of these facilities are literally hell on earth for these animals," which is why he and his fellow activists will continue to try to block and shut Hendry's primate farms.

Holding them accountable

Meanwhile, it falls to Hendry administrator Chapman and his staff to sort out the legalities and the county's official position on primate facilities. He hopes to settle them all —the lawsuit and the zoning complaints against Primate Products and Mannheimer — before 2016 ends.

"I don't think the (Primera) lawsuit is going to take that long — it's a fairly easy suit — but with the press coverage, the activists, the protests, it's going to wax and wane for another 18 months, if it ever really goes away," Chapman says with a sigh. "The only thing I can hope for is to get it to a point where we can say, 'We've done everything that we can do, we're within our legal bounds, we are responsible, we understand you're upset, here's your three minutes, say what you're going to say.'

"The best thing and the most fair thing I can say for anyone who owns property and wants to do business in the county is, 'Are we holding you accountable? Whether it's a cattle operation, a primate operation, a sandwich shop or a dry cleaner, as long as you're living within the legal bounds of what you're supposed to do, then we're fine, regardless of how much political ill will there might be surrounding the issue."