Benicio Del Toro's Monkey Business

Oscar winner urges Puerto Rican governor to stop construction on a massive facility to breed primates and sell them for animal testing purposes

Benicio Del Toro isn't monkeying around.

The Oscar winner is urging Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuño to halt construction of a massive primate-breeding facility in the city of Guayama. Bioculture's monkey-making factory would be supplying the animals to laboratories to be poked, prodded and tested upon.

"[Bioculture] plans to breed thousands of these intelligent animals and lock them in cages before sending them off to laboratories around the world to be used in painful, deadly experiments," the Traffic star writes in a letter to the governor. "Won't you please use your influence as governor to stop this from happening on our beautiful island?"

Then come the threats…

Del Toro points out that the mayor of Guayama, Glorimari Jaime, also disagrees with the project.

"'If my people do civil disobedience against this [Bioculture] project, I will be there to support them,'" he quotes her as saying.

"Please don't allow Puerto Rico to be associated with a facility that profits from extreme animal abuse," he begs in conclusion.

To send a letter of your own, PETA has the info.