Fact Check

Does a Video Show an Abused Monkey at a L'Oreal Animal Testing Facility?

A video showing an injured monkey was shared along with the false claim that the animal was injured at a cosmetic testing facility.

Published March 16, 2017

 (Shutterstock)
Image Via Shutterstock
Claim:
A video shows a monkey that was severely injured at a L'Oreal cosmetics testing facility.

On 12 March 2017, the Facebook group "Animal Rights Warriors" shared a video purportedly showing an injured monkey in a cage along with a link to a petition asking L'Oreal to stop testing cosmetics on animals:

That Facebook post, as well as the linked petition, has since been deleted.

The video in question did not show a monkey that had been injured at a cosmetics testing facility. L'Oreal, a company that has been the subject of several false animal testing rumors, stopped testing their products on animals in 1989 and hasn't tested any individual ingredients on animals since 2013:

L’Oréal has developed a very rigorous safety evaluation procedure of its products, backed by Research. Well before the question of animal testing was raised by civil society or within a regulatory framework, L’Oréal has been committed to new methods of assessing safety that don’t involve animals. A true pioneer, L'Oréal has been reconstructing human skin models in laboratories to elaborate safety tests since 1979, as an alternative to animals. In 1989, L’Oréal completely ceased testing its products on animals, thus 14 years before the regulation required so. Since 2013, L'Oréal has completely stopped testing ingredients on animals.

The company specifically addressed the video in question when a copy of it was posted to YouTube:

L’Oréal has nothing to do with these images/videos and such practices. The link between L’Oréal and this content is not true at all. Please don’t hesitate to warn others that it’s false.

Although the video does not depict an animal that was harmed through testing at L'Oreal (or any other cosmetics company facility), it does unfortunately document a terribly injured animal.

The monkey, who was named "Fighter," was severely injured when it was electrocuted by a high voltage tower in the Mulund Colony of Mumbai, India. The animal was rescued and treated by the Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare (RAWW):

On January 10, the Wildlife NGO RAWW received a call from Mulund Colony, informing about a monkey which had been electrocuted by a high voltage tower in the area and is severely injured.

"Our team immediately rushed to the spot and saw that the monkey was thrown a little away from the tower. He was severely injured with a large part of its body and face burned and bleeding, and maggots eating into its wounds. While we took him to the Thane SPCA first for basic treatment, we shifted him to Dr Katyal's Clinic on the very next day," said Pawan Sharma, founder of RAWW.

Sharma posted several photographs and videos of "Fighter" as the monkey recovered from his injuries, noting on 15 February 2017 that Sharma was ready to be released back into his original environment soon:

Fighter fights electric shock, ready to go back to wild!

This monkey we name him Fighter, he was rescued on 10th January from Mulund Colony a week after being electrocuted when residents and our Rescue team with MumbaiRange of the forest department managed to capture him safely as he was in urgent need of treatment and would have surely died if was left unattended.

Since then the animal was under the custody of RAWW and Thane SPCA on behalf of the Forest Department.

Dr. Deepa led the treatment and left no stone unturned to help the animal recover.

Finally after a long time of more than 35 days and dedicated efforts from everyone involved in this rescue #Fighter is ready to go back to the wild where he belongs.

We will be releasing him in his home range soon.

Sources

Fernandes, Freny.   "Monkey Injured in Electric Cable Mishap Back on Its Feet."     Times of India   17 February 2017.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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