When wild animals kept as pets, tragedy follows
The keeping of monkeys as pets, unfortunately, is not unusual.
However, an unusual story of a monkey hit by a car after running loose in Laredo garnered media coverage across the state earlier this year. Despite suffering serious head injuries, the little monkey survived.
Named Pablito, he has now become a permanent resident of the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary in South Texas, one of the largest in the United States and where I serve as programs director.
Estimates suggest there could be as many as 15,000 privately held primates in U.S. homes. Over the last three years, our 175-acre sanctuary has rescued 14 monkeys from the pet trade, 12 of whom were kept illegally, including Pablito.
Keeping exotic pets — which include monkeys and other nonhuman primates, wolf hybrids, coyotes, foxes, exotic cats, bears, skunks, raccoons, miniature Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, poisonous reptiles, crocodiles and related species — is illegal within San Antonio city limits.
While keeping such a novel animal as a “pet” may seem appealing, the fallout of this trade is often tragic.
All monkeys are wild animals.
Captive primates are not descended from their free-living cousins but are the same animals, both genetically and behaviorally. They are hard-wired with needs that cannot be met in someone’s home.
Many monkeys who come to us from the pet trade are suffering from dietary deficiencies, have undiagnosed illnesses, and present behavioral issues such as obsessive pacing, self-harm and either extreme aggression or pronounced introversion. Some are also carriers of zoonotic diseases — that is, diseases that can be passed from animals to humans.
Herpes B is an example of a zoonotic disease that can have fatal consequences for humans. Herpes B has no effect on the monkey, but if transmitted to humans and untreated, it has around an 80% mortality rate.
As well as the risk of disease spread, all primates can cause serious injury to their owners. One of our newest arrivals, Gizmo, was rehomed to us when he bit the son-in-law of his former owner. The man required 18 stitches. His owner said it was “the worst day of her life.”
Now thriving in a safe environment with other monkeys, Gizmo was one of the lucky ones.
All too often, primates and other wild animals kept in private homes are killed when they cause injury, even though it is simply part of their nature to challenge those they consider part of their “troop.” This is particularly common as they reach adolescence when, in the wild, they would fight for dominance among their peers.
Most primate owners have no idea they are putting themselves and their families at risk.
It is vital that we end the cruel trade in primates as pets, and for this reason, we are campaigning for the introduction of the Captive Primate Safety Act. This legislation would ban the private keeping of monkeys as pets at a federal level.
Learn more about the act and our work to see it introduced at bornfreeusa.org.