News for Florida animal advocates

If you were organizing a conference and you were looking for someone to talk about the international transportation of non-human primates, why would you choose someone who had spent time in federal prison for smuggling endangered species? That’s the question we’d like to ask the Animal Transportation Association (ATA).

Next week, the ATA—-whose members include FedEx, Continental Airlines and other companies that transport animals for zoos, farms and for scientific research—-will hold its annual convention in Fort Lauderdale. On Tuesday morning, Matthew Block will present a workshop entitled “Global Primate Transport.” If you’ve been an animal rights activist in South Florida for a long time, you probably recognize that name.

In February 1990, workers at Bangkok’s international airport heard sounds like the crying of human babies coming from crates labeled “Birds.” On opening the poorly ventilated crates, they found six baby orangutans. Smugglers had stuffed them into the crates and shipped them to Thailand, with the final destination being Moscow. Four of the six babies, three of whom had been shipped upside-down, died. Matthew Block, president of Miami-based Worldwide Primates, Inc., was soon identified as a member of the smuggling ring.

When Matt Block went on trial for smuggling endangered wildlife, ARFF held demonstrations at the steps of the federal courthouse in Miami. ARFF President Nanci Alexander and other local animal advocates attended Block’s court appearances. Block eventually pled guilty to felony charges and was sentenced to 13 months in prison.

Unfortunately, Matt Block returned to the primate business shortly after he got out of prison. Today, Matt Block and his family are one of the largest importers of primates for scientific research. In 2009, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service records, Worldwide Primates, Inc. imported over 1,000 primates—crab-eating macaques, rhesus macaques and other monkeys—from China, Mauritius and elsewhere, to be bred and sold for scientific research.

You Can Help
Please join ARFF to protest Matt Block’s participation at the Animal Transportation Association’s conference in Fort Lauderdale. Visit ARFF’s events calendar for details.

Write to the officers and directors of the Animal Transportation Association and ask if they think a convicted smuggler of endangered species is an appropriate speaker at their annual conference?

Contact:

Lisa Schoppa, ATA President
E-mail: Lisa.Schoppa@coair.com
*Ms. Schoppa is an employee at Continental Airlines, a sponsor of next week’s conference

Erik Liebegott, ATA President-Elect
E-mail: eliebegott@transportech.com

Chris Santarelli, ATA Secretary/Treasurer
E-mail: chriss@mersant.com
*Mr. Santarelli is an employee at Mersant International, another conference sponsor

Robin Turner, ATA Director
E-mail: rturner@drohanmgmt.com and info@aata-animaltransport.org

Tragically, there’s another sad story involving Worldwide Primates and dead animals. On August 20, 1992, a shipment of monkeys arrived at the Miami airport on a Lufthansa flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, via Frankfurt, Germany. Inside 22 wooden crates were 110 monkeys. Every single one of them was dead. The monkeys, crab-eating macaques, were consigned to Worldwide Primates. A veterinarian who inspected the dead monkeys later concluded that the monkeys likely died from heat stroke sometime during the trip from Indonesia.

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