Shamrock Farm

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For the dairy company, see Shamrock Farms.

Shamrock Farm was the

Charles River Laboratories, Inc. for Shamrock (GB) Ltd, provided animals to various laboratories and universities for use in animal testing
. It was Europe's largest supplier of primates to laboratories, and held up to 350 monkeys at a time.

It closed in 2000 after a 15-month protest by British animal rights activists, who campaigned under the name "Save the Shamrock Monkeys."[1]

Background

The company was set up in 1954, trading in wild-caught primates until 1993 and captive-bred ones thereafter. The animals were held in windowless cabins in the company's 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m2) facility, surrounded by 16 ft-high fences, razor wire, and cameras. A touch-sensitive wire ran along the base of the perimeter, with

CCTV cameras zooming in on any spot that was touched.[2]

GlaxoWellcome, the Porton Down military science park, and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, Glasgow, and Manchester, according to Animal Aid.[3]

According to Keith Mann, Shamrock also took primates from British zoos and theme parks, including 83 macaques from Longleat, 32 from Woburn Abbey, and several different species from Ravensden and Robin Hill on the Isle of Wight.[4]

The company's main customer was Huntingdon Life Sciences, which in one year purchased 373 cage-bred macaques, 440 wild-caught monkeys, eight squirrel monkeys, and 37 baboons, according to documents obtained by activists. Keith Mann writes that Shamrock delivered nearly 50,000 monkeys to laboratories in Britain during the 1990s.[4]

BUAV investigation

In 1992, an undercover investigation by the

stereotypical behaviors, such as continuous rocking, twisting, self-mutilation, and wailing. BUAV also witnessed rough handling by staff, who were alleged to have been inadequately trained.[5] The campaign garnered national recognition when footage secretly filmed within the facility by a protester posing as an employee was broadcast on the investigative current affairs programme World in Action.[2]

Following the BUAV investigation, the company announced in 1993 that it would stop buying wild primates. It started trading instead in primates from breeding centres in China, Mauritius, and the Philippines, although no laws exist in these countries to prevent stocks of primates being brought in from the wild.

Closure

The primate operation shut down in 2000 and the farm was closed. In 2003 the facility re-opened as a business park, the anti-protester infrastructure re-purposed to provide a high security environment.[2] In 2014 it was reported that the commercial enterprise had closed and there were plans to demolish the buildings and replace them with residential property.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Save the Shamrock Monkeys" Archived 2005-01-23 at the Wayback Machine, website of the campaign.
  2. ^ a b c "Shamrock Farm open for business", The Argus, October 2, 2003.
  3. ^ Vernelli, Toni. "Good riddance to Shamrock Farm", Animal Aid, June 2000.
  4. ^ a b Mann, Keith. From Dusk 'til Dawn: An insider's view of the growth of the Animal Liberation Movement. Puppy Pincher Press, 2007, p. 556.
  5. ^ "BUAV - British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection - Undercover - Shamrock". Archived from the original on 8 April 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.
  6. ^ "Council split on home plan for infamous monkey farm in Small Dole". www.westsussextoday.co.uk.

External links

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