Ricky Gervais Supports the BUAV to Stop the Baby Trade

LONDON, September 23, 2010 - The BUAV has launched a high-profile campaign, Stop the Baby
Trade, backed by comedian and actor Ricky Gervais.

(Photo: www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100923/409583 )

Stop the Baby Trade calls for an end to the cruel international trade in
monkeys for research. It is a ruthless trade which inflicts great terror and
suffering. Every year, thousands of wild monkeys are torn from their families
and jungle homes to be either exported directly for research or imprisoned on
farms to produce babies who are later shipped overseas as cargo on airlines,
where they will likely suffer and die in cruel experiments.

Stop the Baby Trade, with its symbolic campaign logo, poignantly
illustrates one of the many horrors faced by victims of the primate trade -
the forced early separation of a mother from her infant, which can happen at
just 6 months of age. Natural weaning is a gradual process. Forcibly
separating infants from their mothers is an extremely distressing experience.
In the wild, primates normally remain with their family group for many years,
sometimes for life.

Ricky Gervais was shocked by the BUAV's evidence of the brutality and
cruelty inflicted on our close living relatives during their capture,
confinement, caging, transportation and eventual death in the laboratory.
"Imprisoning monkeys and snatching their babies is a disgusting way to treat
other primates", said Ricky. "Monkeys are highly intelligent beings who feel
pain and distress, just like us."

The USA and UK are key importers of monkeys for research. Recent BUAV
investigations highlight the cruelty involved in the trapping of wild monkeys
and their factory farming in supply countries such as Mauritius, Vietnam and
Cambodia. Denied the lush foliage of their jungle homes, these monkeys are
usually kept in overcrowded groups on farms and spend their lives behind
bars, on bare concrete or wire. Secret footage released this week by the BUAV
from Mauritius where thousands of monkeys - many snatched from the wild - are
exported to laboratories around the world, shows a trapper tormenting and
abusing a wild-caught monkey and workers at one farm grabbing and pulling
monkeys by their tails.

Ricky Gervais appeals to those concerned: "Please support the BUAV to end
this shameful cruelty. We must Stop The Baby Trade."

For further information and visuals contact Fleur Dawes at
fleur.dawes@buav.org or +44(0)7850-510955 or +44(0)207-619-6978
www.buav.org

For further information, video footage and photographs, contact Fleur
Dawes at fleur.dawes at buav.org or +44(0)7850-510955 or +44(0)207-619-6978 or
visit www.buav.org