Pet to Regret

Public Health and Safety

Nonhuman primates are our closest living relatives, thus many serious diseases can be transferred between human and non-human primates, including the common cold, influenza, internal parasites, measles, yellow fever, hepatitis, tuberculosis, herpes B virus, monkeypox, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, and Simian Immunodeficiency (SIV, the nonhuman primate version of HIV).  Primates living in human households are often allowed to free-range in the home and sleep, eat, and even bathe with their human “owners”.  Private “owners” are often scratched or bitten by their pet primates, setting the perfect stage for disease transmission.   Some of the above diseases can be fatal to humans.  Illnesses that typically only cause minor symptoms in humans, such as a cold or flu, can be deadly to nonhuman primates.

Nonhuman primates are dangerous animals that can and do inflict serious and life-threatening injuries. They are wild animals, not domesticated, and their natural instincts remain very much intact even in captivity.  Wild animals have sudden episodes of aggression that cannot be controlled or untrained.  Upon sexual maturity, pet primates will begin attacking.  Children are especially vulnerable since primates are naturally inclined to establish dominance hierarchies. It is inhumane to remove their teeth and even small primates can inflict significant injuries and pass on serious diseases.

Animal Welfare

Infant primates in the pet trade are taken from their mothers when they are only hours or days old.  Breeders erroneously think that hand-rearing infants will make them less aggressive toward humans and thus better pets.  In actuality, hand-reared animals are typically more dangerous than mother-reared animals because they lose their natural, healthy fear of humans.  Infants taken from their mothers do not develop the skills necessary to raise their own young.  This creates a vicious cycle of rejected infants that must be raised by humans to physically survive. They develop poor social skills, which makes them difficult or impossible to integrate into a natural social group.

Female primates whose infants are removed for hand-rearing will produce more offspring at shorter intervals, thus the breeder profits by the production of more infants to sell.  The abnormally short inter-birth interval can lead to significant health issues in addition to the emotional trauma and depression mothers and infants suffer from their forced separation.

Primates naturally live in complex social groups and need conspecific contact for psychological well being.  Human contact cannot adequately replace the bonds they naturally form with their own kind.  Social and sexual isolation often leads to abnormal behaviors such as self-mutilation.

Primate housing, nutritional, behavioral, and psychological needs require extensive expertise and can be very expensive.  Few people have the knowledge or resources to properly care for them.  Failure to provide an appropriate and safe environment compromises the animal’s welfare.  Primates require specialized vet care.  It can be difficult or impossible to find a veterinarian who is qualified, experienced, and willing to treat primates.

Frustrated owners often neglect, abuse, or dispose of their pet primates improperly.  They attempt to change the nature of the animal rather than the nature of the care provided. Such tactics include confinement in small barren enclosures, chaining, shocking, beating “into submission,” or even painful mutilations, such as tooth and nail removal.  Some are euthanized.  Adult primates are difficult to place at primate sanctuaries, which are usually filled to capacity.  Most zoos cannot take them due to lack of space for socially inept animals that cannot be easily integrated into normal social groups.

Conservation

Nearly half of all extant primate species are at risk of extinction in the wild.  Many primate species found in the pet trade are members of endangered species.  The demise of their species in the wild is partly due to collection for the pet trade.  It is estimated that for every infant primate captured from the wild, ten others have died.Although it is illegal to import primates for the pet trade, they are still illegally trafficked through black markets around the world, including the U.S.  Primates are even more commonly kept as pets in their native countries.   Ironically, American conservationists working in primate regions discourage indigenous peoples from keeping primates as pets while so many living in the U.S. do it.  Unless the demand is eliminated, the trade in primates will continue to flourish, bringing their species closer and closer to extinction.

Pet primates are unable to contribute genetically to the conservation programs in which they are needed due to their isolation from managed populations and also, in many cases, due to serious deficits in their social skills related to their rearing and isolation from others of their own species.

When frustrated pet owners release primates into habitats they are not native to, those that survive and reproduce can pose serious threats to indigenous wildlife through competition for resources and/or introduction of disease.