Air France is under fire for transporting monkeys and other primates to what could be their last destinations — small cages housing them in between scientific experiments.

That's the claim of L.A.-based Last Chance for Animals (LCA), which recently announced it has put up not one but two billboards taking Air France to task for its alleged monkey business. The group also mocks an Air France TV ad with a YouTube video of its own:

The billboards — one says “Air France Flies Monkeys to Lab Cruelty,” the other is similar but says “Scare France” — are on Century Boulevard near LAX and on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, respectively, LCA states.

The group says that Air France is the “number one” transporter of research primates across the globe. It says in a statement that the animals are destined for harsh lives:

Every year, tens of thousands of primates, mainly rhesus macaque monkeys, are kidnapped from the wild, separated from their family groups, caged and bred in large-scale breeding facilities before undergoing the trauma of international flights in the cargo hold of passenger planes. Upon their arrival to research facilities, they are forced to spend the rest of their lives imprisoned in tiny cages and tormented in costly, unnecessary and inhumane experiments.

LCA wants to see Air France join other airlines, such as United and China Eastern, in refusing to transport primates.

Credit: LCA's Silver Lake billboard.

Credit: LCA's Silver Lake billboard.

A statement from Air France says the airline …

… scrupulously respects and complies with standards issued by: the International Air Transport Association (IATA), … the European Union; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); [and] the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

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