BBC Wildlife - UK (2021-12)

C

urrently, if I so wished,

I could walk into my local

pet shop and buy a monkey.

I wouldn’t need to get a

licence, there would be no

home check, and I probably wouldn’t even

be asked how I would care for it. Where do I

live? Manchester.

In the UK it is currently - and shockingly

• still perfectly legal to buy 85 species of
  monkey as easily as one might buy a goldfish.
  Yet, thankfully, this is about to change,
  thanks to a new Animal Welfare Bill that is
  making its way through parliament.
  Though not an outright ban, the new
  legislation is set to make private ownership
  of primates much more difficult and highly
  regulated, by requiring anyone who wishes to
  sell or own one to have a licence. Once these
  regulations come into force - likely by 2024 -
  breaches will be subject to heavy fines.
  That there even is a primate pet trade in
  the UK may come as a surprise. But, sadly, it
  is very much a reality, is large and growing,
  and has led to many animals living in misery.
  The monkey I would likely buy would be
  a marmoset. These highly social creatures are
  the most commonly kept primates in the UK,
  making up about 80 per cent of the trade.
  It is thought that these are mostly bred
  here in the UK by dealers. In fact, Monkey
  World, the Dorset-based zoo and primate
  rescue centre, has found that 70 per cent of
  the marmosets they have rescued are male,
  and that even those sold as females are often
  actually males. This suggests that breeders
  are holding onto the females in order to
  breed from them.
  The other 20 per cent of the trade
  consists of a mix of species, some legal,
  some definitely not. Monkey World has
  taken 14 species of primate from the UK
  pet trade into its care since 1989. As well as
  marmosets, it has rescued spider monkeys,
  ring-tailed lemurs and even a chimpanzee,

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leoma Williams is a science

writer and PhD student at the

University of Manchester.

She studies group behaviours

in social animals, including

primates and corvids, hoping

to discover more about how social

groups work together in the face of

competing interests.

ANIMAL WELFARE O

discoverwildlife.com BBC WILDLIFE 51

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