The president of a local company that imports primates was charged with a misdemeanor involving mistreatment of animals earlier this year. BC US is an Immokalee company that breeds, quarantines, and sells macaque monkeys for research and testing. This spring, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission charged the company’s president, Mark Bushmitz, with a second-degree misdemeanor for the escape of Class 2 wildlife. The charge carries a penalty of 60 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $500.

Charging a company officer for animal mistreatment is extremely rare. We asked Delcianna WInders, Director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School, why she thought charges had been brought in this case. There was risk not only to animals, she said, but also to humans. In this case, a monkey that had been mistakenly transported to Miami had been let loose in a lab and put lab workers there at risk.

“There was also very serious risk to human health because of the myriad diseases, human transmissible diseases that these macaques carry. And so I think that may be a reason that we're seeing it be taken more seriously too,” she said.

Winders questioned why the charges came only at the state level and not from the federal USDA. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA responded by email that it cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.

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