While watching an obnoxious travel-show host on a PBS program, I heard an older Teutonic lady who runs an African animal refugee camp (her place in Zambia was being visited by the obnoxious lady) say that while chimpanzees are now easier to get for bushmeat (deforestation in Zambia), baby chimps aren't shot; they're worth far more money in sales to Saudi Arabia. A passing comment from an older and wizened lady that got no attention on this particular show made me say "What? What did she say?"
I wanted to do a little research online; curiosity got the best of me. I'm not a hacker or anything, and I didn't spend all night chasing dust clouds, but:
This, this, and this are three separate ads on a Saudi site called ExPatAds that use the same two photos and twice use the same broken English to describe their baby chimp for sale.
Wow, I thought. Then I found an ad coming from Doha, a city in Qatar, that had baby chimps, lemurs, genets, and kinkajous for sale, all bread for quality.
That's in Arabic lands, right? That doesn't happen in America, right? Pretty soon I found this ad: (cut and paste)
Male and female Baby Chimpanzee.Healthy & registered with papers. Born and bred in captivity,tame and friendly. Gets along with other pets. Will sell only to experienced hand. Will ship at buyer's expense. Drop a note for inquiries at (silvia11@blumail.org)
This ad said it was for a Los Angeles location and provided the following phone number: 201-473-4473, which, as it happens, is for Seacaucus, in Jersey. Hmm...
After that I tried to find out some of the legalities of owning primates as pets in the United States. This site, Pet Monkey Info, gives probably the best breakdown of how to go about finding a primate for sale, how to care for it, and what states have what restrictions. Because the US is in line with the provisions of CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species), it is illegal to import any endangered specie into the States. If you purchase a monkey outside of the country, because of the CDC, you will not be allowed to bring it into the country.
Other than that, the federal government has left the question of exotic pets up to the states. In Alabama? No regulation. California? Banned. Nevada? No regulation. Louisiana? Surprisingly banned. Their state motto is "A Sportsman Paradise", where Sportsman means "hunter". Florida has the most specific, and labyrinthine, set of regulations on exotic pets of any state in the country, mainly due to the gold rush of cocaine cash in the 80s.
So, if you live in a state that has little or no regulation, and you can locate a breeding and selling organization, you can legally purchase for your home entertainment a baby chimp, or a squirrel monkey (very popular), or a lemur, or any number of weird things. Personally, I'd say be wary of chimps. They're thugs at heart (kinda like us).
Apparently, it's all good. And if your baby chimp gets sick, you can contact these folks.
Really? People still think owning something that is twice to three times stronger than a human is a good idea??? Chimps are cute as infants but next to impossible to handle as an adult... so sad that people do this.
ReplyDeletepray. for. mojo...
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