Sen. Romero-Donnelly Honored in Florida for Stopping Monkey-Breeding Facility in Puerto Rico
For
Immediate Release:
April
16, 2012
Contact:
Wendy
Wegner 202-483-7382
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — At a special reception at South Florida's gourmet vegan restaurant Sublime on Sunday, April 15, PETA recognized Puerto Rico Sen. Melinda Romero-Donnelly for her tireless efforts to halt the opening of monkey-breeding facility Bioculture, which would have bred thousands of monkeys and sold their offspring to laboratories for use in deadly experiments. Other guests in attendance included Telemundo's Natalia Villaveces and El Talismán's Pablo Azar. Photos from the event are available here.
For her efforts, Sen. Romero-Donnelly received the Nanci Alexander Award for activism, given in honor of Sublime owner and Animal Rights Foundation of Florida founder Nanci Alexander.
"PETA could not have stopped Bioculture without Senator Romero-Donnelly's help," says Ms. Alexander. "PETA and I are proud to recognize her for her hard work and determination to spare generations of monkeys from a lifetime of suffering and a miserable death in laboratories."
To stop Bioculture, PETA worked with local activists to file a lawsuit to halt the construction of the facility—a lawsuit that the group won because Bioculture had broken the necessary permit laws. Sen. Romero-Donnelly led the Puerto Rico Senate in launching an investigation into Bioculture. It found that the land on which the facility was being constructed was not zoned for such a facility and that Bioculture had failed to file various required reports. The senator also sponsored a resolution in the Senate objecting to Bioculture's plans.
Based on the evidence of the senator's investigation, three courts—including the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico—ruled that the Bioculture facility had been built illegally. The city of Guayama also passed a law prohibiting the import, export, and use of monkeys in experiments. Other public figures who spoke out against Bioculture include CNN's Jane Velez-Mitchell and actor Benicio Del Toro.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.