By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                The international animal rights organization, PETA, announced on Thursday that it has confirmed a monkey lab facility won’t be constructed on 1,400 acres of property in Gulf Hammock.

            PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said an official at JOINN Biologics, also known as JOINN Laboratories, confirmed in a phone conversation that it wouldn’t challenge Levy County’s zoning regulations.

            The county has said its land use regulations allow research-type facilities only on industrially zoned property. The Gulf Hammock property doesn’t qualify for that type of zoning.

            A realtor for JOINN Labs told Levy County Planning and Zoning Director Stacey Hectus last year the company wanted to use the Gulf Hammock property as a quarantine facility for research monkeys.

            Levy County has been on high alert since Spotlight broke the story. There has been virtually unanimous local opposition to a facility being constructed in Gulf Hammock for the purpose of housing research monkeys.

            Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, a PETA scientist who specializes in research on primate diseases that can be transmitted from monkeys to human beings, and human beings to monkeys, has worked closely with Spotlight on the monkey lab issue.

            Spotlight had been unable to confirm information from County Coordinator Wilbur Dean that the 1400 acres was for sale. Spotlight asked Jones-Engel if she would ask PETA staff to research whether the land was on the market.

            Jones-Engel said PETA started by checking the Levy County tax roll and discovered JOINN had not paid its 2022 property taxes on the 1,400 acres. She did further investigation and found a phone number for JOINN and made a cold call to the number.

            She said a man who identified himself as Bo Wei answered the phone at JOINN. Jones-Engel began by telling him that the company had not paid its property taxes on the 1,400 acres.

            She said he responded by saying, “Oh my God, we haven’t received any notification about that.”

            Jones-Engel told him that there had been rumors about JOINN trying to sell the property.

            “He said, oh, do you want to buy it?” Jones-Engel said.

            She informed him that the $5.5 million value of the property was a little pricey for her tastes.

            He wanted to know if she was a representative of the Levy County tax office. Engel-Jones said she had heard JOINN wanted to sell the property. He told her that was just a rumor, but he added when the company heard it wasn’t going to get a zoning change, it decided not to build on the 1,400 acres.

            Wei said JOINN would put cattle and sheep on the property and try to get rid of the exotic deer.

            Jones-Engel identified herself as being associated with PETA. She said she was keenly interested in whether JOINN would build a monkey facility on the property. She asked if it would be okay if she quoted him as saying JOINN had abandoned plans to build on the Gulf Hammock plan. She told him there would be a news release explaining JOINN had scrapped plans for a monkey facility.

            “He said, okay,” Jones-Engel said. “It was one of those things. It was the right person, at the right time. He made an assumption when I said I was looking at the tax records and he started chatting.”

            Jones-Engel said she considers her conversation to be a confirmation that the company has scrapped plans to build a monkey facility in Levy County, but she is keeping her ears open.

            She’s not the only one.

            State Rep. Chuck Clemons said the state is ready to jump into the fight against the monkey facility if JOINN files for a permit with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to house monkeys on the 1,400-acre parcel in Gulf Hammock.

            PETA is celebrating JOINN’s confirmation that a monkey facility won’t be built in Levy County.

            “PETA celebrates this massive blow to the monkey-importation pipeline as a huge victory for animals,” said PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “We’re grateful to the Florida residents and officials who joined us in saying “no” to greedy importers and experiments who harm and kill monkeys.”   

            The PETA news release said the monkey facility, if constructed, would have established Levy County as another point along the dangerous and deadly wildlife-trade chain, which exposes often stressed and injured monkeys to pathogens that can spread to humans. The disease-prone animals are sold and trucked to laboratories across the U.S. for use in barbaric experiments.

            Long-tailed macaques, one of the species JOINN would most likely have imported, are now recognized as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature – in large part due to their capture and exploitation as part of the international wildlife trade to U.S Laboratories.

            “There, they are mutilated, poisoned, deprived of food and water, forcibly immobilized in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, tormented and killed,” the news release said.

            Jones-Engel said she contacted JOINN on Monday. She checked the property tax website later this week and JOINN had paid the property taxes on the 1,400 acres.

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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt February 9, 2023; Posted February 9, 2023