I want to bring up something really serious that you guys can help with.
The buying and trafficking of primates in the US is a very real problem that is making the work of conservationists really difficult.
It is completely legal to buy/ sell monkeys, chimps, and bonobos in the US, even when these animals are endangered in Africa.
www.wildanimalworld.com
http://www.primatestore.com/forsale.asp
I know you all know the reasons why this is wrong: how can we tell Africans to conserve their endangere species when we buy and sell them over here like puppies, then there is the issue of disease, bites, and the welfare of the monkeys themselves who end up in cages or abandoned or at biomedical facilities or roadside zoos.
The reason this is still legal is because the pet traders are very effective lobbyists.
Please, please everyone, write to your congress representative here:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
And copy and paste this message:
Dear Senator,
I would like to support the
The Captive Primate Safety Act
Most people keep domesticated animals, whether it’s a dog, cat or a cow. We know the biological systems in their bodies that control stress responses are down-regulated relative to wild animals. This means that the average dog, cat, cow, etc. stays much more calm in a stressful situation than a wolf, lion or buffalo. Because domesticated animals do not become as stressed, they rarely if ever attack humans compared to wild animals. It’s true that 23 Americans died last year from dog bites, but this statistic would be many times higher if the 68 million dog owners had instead lived in as close contact with wolves. By living together with us for thousands of years, domesticated animals have been bred to live together with humans relatively harmoniously. Domestication is the process of breeding out aggression toward humans
Primates are not domesticated animals. While a tiny percentage of pet dogs will bite a human, all primates will readily bite a human.
ALL primates potentially carry diseases deadly to humans including Herpes B, Yellow Fever, Monkeypox, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, SIV, HIV and Tuberculosis.
Most primates, including chimpanzees, are highly endangered. It is illegal to own, purchase or sell primates in Africa. Unfortunately, an international trade rages in Africa –- including the sale of primates. Hunters shoot mothers and sell their bodies as meat to rich city dwellers who can afford the luxury. They pull babies off the backs of their dead mothers to sell in the markets as pets. However, these pet traders are doing nothing worse than what is done in the United States legally: baby primates are pulled off their mothers’ backs and sold as pets.
Primate ownership in the US is hypocritical when we are trying to conserve them in the wild.
I support this bill, and I urge you to do the same,
Sincerely,
