Darwin the monkey has new home
Famous coat-clad exotic pet sent to primate shelter
After shooting to international fame in a matter of hours, a well-dressed monkey found in the parking lot of a Toronto IKEA will now be spending his days at a primate sanctuary in rural Ontario after he was seized from his owners.
On Sunday, Darwin, a seven-monthold rhesus macaque wearing a diaper and dressed in a miniature shearlinglike winter coat, somehow let himself out of a parked car and wandered around the store, where he was soon spotted by baffled shoppers.
“Umm saw a monkey in the IKEA parking lot,” reads a Sunday tweet by witness Bronwyn Page. The Toronto woman soon found herself as the international face of the bizarre event, fielding questions from across Canada, the U.S. and in the U.K.
As it is illegal to keep a monkey as a pet in Toronto, Toronto Animal Services seized Darwin and fined his owners, who recently brought the monkey from Montreal, $240.
On Monday afternoon, Darwin checked into his new home at Sunderland, Ont.’s Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary, about 70 kilometres away.
“We were relieved that he was coming to a place where his needs are going to be met first,” sanctuary founder Sherri Delaney said.
Meanwhile a woman describing herself as the monkey’s “mother” pleaded for his return during an interview with Toronto’s CityNews.
“I know he cannot live without me,” said real estate agent Yasmin Nakhuda. “And everyone who knows Darwin can vouch for this. He needs his mother like a child needs his mother.”
Although she did not doubt that Darwin’s owners “loved him very much,” Delaney asked people “to think before they do this.”
“These animals are not meant as pets. They’re not meant to take the place of a child,” she said. “Did he need to be in a coat? No, he didn’t. Did he need to be in a diaper? No.”
At the sanctuary, which now holds 22 primates, Darwin will be paired up with a “motherly” monkey.
A troop animal that requires constant contact and stimulation, Darwin will live among two Japanese macaques and two more rhesus monkeys, who are soon expected to arrive at the sanctuary from lab situations in the Greater Toronto Area.
On the weekend, Darwin’s story made headlines from the Mediterranean island of Malta to Melbourne, Australia, and beyond — arguably becoming the most internationally recognized news story to come out of Canada since the June search for alleged dismemberment killer Luka Magnotta.
Darwin’s story earned a mention by CNN’s Anderson Cooper and online, he garnered at least two mock Twitter accounts and his own hashtag, in addition to countless photoshopped images.
Many cheered the five-month-old monkey’s fashion cred.
“Can’t wait to dish critique on that divine, Russian-inspired shearling coat,” chimed Canadian fashion journalist Jeanne Beker.
Toronto Animal Services spokeswoman Mary Lou Leiher said Darwin was in good shape after being captured.
“He’s a baby. He’s a little bit sensitive,” Leiher told reporters Monday, adding that it was a “stressful time” for Darwin.
Leiher said there are good reasons to outlaw the ownership of animals like Darwin.
In addition to the dangers Darwin personally faced by wandering around a parking lot, rhesus monkeys are capable of carrying herpes B, a virus that is potentially lethal if passed to humans.
“The bylaw is in place to protect the safety of the public as well as the safety and health of the animal,” she said.
Greg Tarry, a manager with the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said monkeys may be small and cute when they are young, but that keeping one as a pet can be dangerous as the creature grows older and more assertive.
“You start getting into competitions about ‘who’s in charge here,’” he said.
“And if that happens, you’ve got an animal without social skills unable to live in a society of primates who’s too aggressive to live with people.”
“You’ve basically got an animal with no future at all,” said Tarry, a former head of animal care at the Calgary Zoo.