Republished with permission from the June 2005 edition of Southsider Magazine

Pets or Prisoners?
by Craig J. Blair, DVM

Capuchin, spider and vervet monkeys, and Java macaques are arboreal monkeys who live in large family groups of 20 to 60. Capuchins and spider monkeys occupy the highest canopy of the forest 100 feet or more from the ground. They are all omnivorous, eating fruits, seeds, vegetation, insects, reptiles, birds, and small mammals. Vervets wean their babies around six months old, while the others wean between one and two years of age. The young, however, remain with their families for several years.

These are four separate species but they are all considered to be extremely intelligent and display complex skills and behaviors. They are very social and are fiercely protective of their young. The mothers are extremely maternal and will adopt orphans from other groups. A bereaved mother will often keep the body of her infant for several days.

For these monkeys, heaven is lounging in a treetop, munching on a crunchy lizard while surrounded by their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. And yet some humans think they might be happier if they were never allowed to climb higher than 10 feet, never saw another monkey, and instead dressed in baby clothes, wore diapers, and ate baby cereal until they died of malnutrition.

In 1975 it became illegal to import monkeys to be kept as pets into the United States. This law spawned the U.S. primate pet trade, which now involves breeding and selling primates in this country from stock that descended from animals brought in before 1975. This is a business based on keeping social creatures in near-seclusion, kidnapping day-old infants from their mothers, and selling them to gullible, poorly informed people.

Rainbow Primates, one of the largest brokers of pet monkeys in the eastern U.S., advertises on its Web site that its employees spend up to two hours with new monkey owners educating them about everything they need to know about monkeys. I’ve been in exotic pet practice for 11 years and received training at the Cincinnati Zoo. I can say with certainty that two hours is barely enough time to realize that you will never know everything you need to know about monkeys.

I am the only veterinarian in Kentucky that will care for pet monkeys. I know this because I have clients who drive four hours to bring their monkeys to me. I don’t support keeping monkeys as pets, but I provide health care for them because no animal should be denied care. Monkeys are not like other exotic pets. Providing the correct temperature, humidity, and an adequate diet is not enough for them. Many of the monkey owners I know have confided that they wish they had never got a monkey. Opponents of pet monkeys argue that they pose a health risk to humans. This is true to an extent, but the American pet monkey population has been isolated since 1975 and poses little real risk for diseases like Ebola and Marburg virus. They are probably the ones at greater risk because the virus that causes human cold sores can kill a monkey. Macaques are the exception. They can carry the Herpes B virus which is harmless to them, but deadly to humans. The greater risk to humans is physical injury. Even small monkeys are ridiculously strong and have teeth like a Rottweiler. Just ask the man who recently had his face and testicles ripped and chewed off while having a birthday party for his pet chimp.

Monkey owners will argue that there are no statistics on disease transmission from pet monkeys to humans. They are correct only because monkey owners are very reluctant to report monkey-related sickness or injury. Statistics do show that entire colonies of research monkeys have been wiped out due to infections and research workers have died from disease transmitted by monkeys. Most of the monkey owners I know have admitted that they’ve been bitten and scratched multiple times. I’ve never had a dog or cat owner ask me to pull all of their pet’s teeth but this is a common request from monkey owners. For me, the argument is much simpler. Keeping monkeys as pets is tantamount to slavery. Monkeys are non-human primates, just one three-letter prefix away from being human. Whether you ascribe to Creationism, Evolution, or a hybrid belief, monkeys are our closest kin on earth. They are extremely intelligent and prone to stress-induced medical, behavioral, and emotional problems. All the pet monkeys I see have stress-related problems. Stomach ulcers, chronic diarrhea, nervous tics, and aggression are just a few of the problems that I’ve seen as a direct result of captivity.

Over the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have become masters of civilization, monkeys have become masters of the jungles. Humans have a nasty habit of being selfish and shortsighted. Sitting with you on your couch dressed in a sailor suit watching documentaries about monkeys on the Discovery Channel is no substitute for swinging through the treetops with their extended family.