DANVILLE – NorthcentralPA.com is reporting… The animal trucking company involved in the crash last year near Danville which led to the escape of several monkeys has shut down. The crash occurred Jan. 21, 2022 when the truck collided with a dump truck along Route 54 near the Interstate 80 junction. The truck, owned by Quebedeaux’s Transport, was carrying around 100 monkeys. At least three escaped on that cold night when temperatures went down into single digits. State police and the Pennsylvania Game Commission spent the night searching in the nearby woods for the escaped monkeys. The monkeys eventually were captured and reportedly euthanized humanely. According to PETA, the company shut down after they submitted evidence to the USDA and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) that Quebedeaux’s Transport was illegally transporting monkeys to laboratories.
The owner of Quebedeaux’s Transport, Jeff Quebedeaux, announced the closure on LinkedIn, and it was confirmed to PETA by the DOT. The move follows Quebedeaux’s failed attempt to turn a defunct Louisiana human prison into a quarantine facility that would house hundreds of monkeys imported into the U.S. for use in laboratories, PETA says. PETA claims the long-tailed macques were not quarantined to rule out zoonotic disease infection previous to their transport. The organization says they uncovered evidence that the trucking company appeared to have illegally transported hundreds of monkeys and was planning to expand to include the quarantine facility in Bunkie, Louisiana. Quebedeaux’s trucks traveled across the U.S. for years, carrying monkeys that were imported and used for experimentation, PETA alleges. PETA officials pointed out that the monkeys can harbor diseases that are transmissible to humans.
