When will the UK do something about its primate pet trade shame?

Much as I enjoyed my visit to Monkey World and really like what they are doing, it is nevertheless sad that a primate sanctuary is needed at all. With their work in South-East Asia, it is easy to forget that many of the animals rescued by Monkey World actually come from the UK. Monkey World clearly does not forget this and one of the things the keepers ask of visitors is to sign their petition against the UK pet trade. It’s not just that primates in the UK are being kept in wholly unsuitable conditions - it’s entirely legal do to so. Caring organisations like zoos (including Monkey World) have to provide standards of care that private owners simply do not. This is a legal loophole that must surely be closed.

Following our visit, I started looking for additional online petitions on this issue, as I figured there must be some. Looking on HM Government’s e-petition site, I did discover one that closed in February 2012 to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which was actually created by Monkey World founder, Alison Cronin:

Primates as Pets Petition

I would like to state my opposition to the LEGAL trade in primate as pets in Great Britain today. We believe that is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that any captive monkeys receive a standard of care that meets their behavioural and physical needs regardless of whether they are kept in private homes or pet shops. We are asking the British Government to issue guidance to local authorities, responsible for granting licences for these exotic pets, to use the same standard of duty of care as they would for primates kept in zoo or wildlife parks (the Zoo Licensing Act 1981). If a monkey is deserving of a certain standard of care in a zoo or wildlife park, by definition it is deserving of the same standard of care in a private home or pet shop. We would like our concerns addressed by the Goverment and Select Committee immediately.

Number of signatures: 4,229
Created by: Dr Alison Cronin, MBE
Closing: 29/02/2012 12:04

Just as disappointing, a “Primates should not be kept as pets” petition on the Petition Site earlier this year garnered a measly 3,057 signatures.

It’s not just Monkey World calling for this. The RSPCA have also called for a ban:

Dr Ros Clubb, senior wildlife scientist for the charity, commented: “We must stop this growing trade. It has become far too easy to pick up a monkey over the internet, especially since you don’t need a licence to keep many of them.”

How can anyone look at these creatures and think that keeping them “in tiny, indoor cages, in solitary confinement” is OK? Please, sign the Monkey World petition.

Hanging out with the cousins at Monkey World

Continuing the ape theme, back in May we paid a visit to Monkey World in Dorset. It was a visit that was long overdue, as we became quite avid followers of Monkey Business (since superceded by Monkey Life) when we were in Dublin and it had been on our list of places to visit since moving to Southampton. As often happens, I think, the impending move to Australia has motivated a flurry of postponed activities and a birthday provided the final excuse for a visit.

Monkey World is a fantastic place, providing sanctuary for a large number of rescued primates - a shocking number of which come from the shameful UK pet trade - in carefully crafted enclosures.

Glorious Gibbons

Some of my favourites are the various gibbons and the keeper talk was really interesting as they all have quite distinct personalities. Fox (I think it was), for example, is a real show-off and liked to brachiate back and forth at speed in between hanging out at the public end of his enclosure whilst the keeper talk was going on. Fox is a Mueller’s Gibbon - all furry limbs and muscle (above). As anyone who has seen the TV programmes knows, many of the tales of the individual animals are quite touching. If I remember correctly, Nike, a Lars Gibbon (left), for example, was prone to panic attacks following whatever ordeals he experienced in his former life. His mate in Monkey World, however, will come over and give him a cuddle until he feels better.

Watching these animals and seeing how similar to humans they can be in terms of their poses and behaviour (not to mention anatomy), I simply cannot conceive how anyone can seriously doubt that we share ancestry with these magnificent animals.

Lovely Lemurs

One of the best bits of Monkey World is the lemur enclosure. (Ironically, perhaps, as lemurs are not monkeys. Purists will argue that apes are not monkeys either, which is taxonomically true but not really evolutionarily true - monkeys are “polyphyletic” and apes sit in the middle of the two main monkey lineages - Old World and New World. In other words, apes and Old World Monkeys are more closely related to each other than either is to New World Monkeys - so I have no problem in being called a monkey or comments that we descended from monkeys! Anyway, lemurs are actually prosimians and split off from monkeys around 75-80 million years ago.)

The great thing about the lemur enclosure is that you are in there with the lemurs - clearly something that you cannot do with apes - which allows for some really close encounters and views. When we were there, for example, the ruffed lemur (above) was quite happily walking along the fence next to the path, whilst a troop(?) of ring-tailed lemurs were in the trees overhead.

A great day out

Other things that really impressed me about Monkey World were the keeper talks (we went to three!) and how child-friendly the whole place was - they have some awesome playgrounds! The only real disappointment was the food, particularly after visiting Dublin Zoo in the meantime and experiencing their top-notch nosh. There’s a lot of space for picnics and I think that this is the recommended option for a visit - a visit that itself is highly recommended!

Great thinkers of the Ape world

My recent post about Dublin zoo featured the Orang utan, Sibu, in a meditative pose:

It reminded me of an earlier favourite captured by my wife at Durrell Wildife Park (a.k.a. Jersey Zoo) of the resident silverback having a good think:

I wonder what they were thinking about.

Kudos to 2013 British and Irish Lions Tour logo designer

Yesterday's Lions match against Australia was a great one, even if it was the Lions' turn not to win with the last kick of the game. It's all set up for a great deciding match in Sydney. As well as some good rugby, one of the highlights of the tour for me has been the logo of the lion's head shaped like Australia (below, pinched from the Fantasy Rugby Scout website). I'm not sure who designed it but I love it!

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A Monster in the garden

There are many beetles in this world but this particular monster was in our back garden when we got back from our holiday last week.

It’s some kind of stag beetle although I’m not sure which species - there are a lot of them. I’m sure in some countries it would be considered a tiddler but for a British bug it was pretty big. Look at the mandibles on that bad boy!

A Grand Day Out at Dublin Zoo

When we lived in Dublin, Dublin Zoo was always one of our favourite places to go. Membership is pretty good value and you don’t have to go many times to make it financially worthwhile, not to mention the fact that the money is going to a good cause. Being members also makes a trip to the zoo more enjoyable, I feel: it takes away the pressure to see everything in one trip and encourages more visits. It was therefore great to visit the zoo this week during our trip to Ireland.

This time, we went with my niece and nephew (aged four and two), so the animal priority list was shifted slightly and we headed to the Family Farm first. Like a lot of the zoo, this has changed since our last visit (2007, maybe?) and features fewer guinea pigs and bunnies in favour of more real pigs and other farm animals - including some rather cute piglets (right).

Next up (on my priority list) was my perennial favourite, the Red Pandas. Whilst they eat bamboo and come from China, Red Pandas are actually more closely related to racoons that the Giant Panda, which is a bear. (Their lineage diverged from Giant Pandas somewhere in the order of 40 million years ago, versus 30-35 mya with raccoons and skunks.) Red pandas are a bit less fussy about what they eat than their fellow Carnivora namesakes and, unlike Giant Pandas, do also eat meat (birds, mammals and eggs) although they always look far to laid back to actually hunt for anything, so I am guessing this is primarily by scavenging. Like cats, they are very cute snoozers.

Some excited noises alerted us to the sealions being fed and after watching them chow down for a while, we headed to the ever-charming Meerkat Restaurant for some nosh of our own. This is great for the kids because, in addition to child-friendly food, one wall of the restaurant is a large viewing window in the meerkat enclosure, providing entertainment too. Currently, this entertainment includes three little meerkat cubs (below). I was also impressed by the food itself, which was pretty good for a zoo - freshly cooked real burgers!

After lunch it was time to check out the new African Savanna section of the African Plains area of the zoo. This has been heavily reworked since we were last there and now features an elevated walkway around the giraffe, zebra and rhino enclosures, giving great views and potential close-ups of the giraffes.

Another new development (since our last visit) was the nearby Gorilla Rainforest island (sponsored by Freddy Fyffe’s bananas!) It was great to see the Gorillas have more space to roam and they looked relaxed in their new habitat. I didn’t see the big guy (Harry) but we did see most of the rest of the troop. (The priority spot was little Kituba, who was born a couple of days apart from my nephew, who brought his own gorilla named Kituba to the zoo.)

I didn’t get any pictures of the gorillas but I did get a good one of Sibu, the big male Orang utan, who was seemed to be happily chilling out and possibly pondering the mysteries of life like a Zen master.

Blogging at sea - the ferry versus flying for Southampton to Dublin

Southampton is a pretty good place to live when you have relatives in Dublin because there are direct flights. This trip, we decided to drive over and take the ferry from Holyhead instead. Apart from the long(ish) drive on the UK side, which is not so bad (especially if you splash out for the M6 toll road), there are some definite benefits to getting ferry.

For one thing, having a car in Dublin is really useful. I say this having lived in the city quite happily for six years without one. It is only going over and visiting friends and relatives with the car that I realise quite how much more you can do with a car - one of the great things about Dublin is all the great stuff on its doorstep.

The journey itself, although longer, is also more comfortable. (In a weather-dependent fashion, I suspect - we had good weather each way.) Although we made a poor coffee decision last time, the discovery of (proper barista) Costa coffee and onboard WiFi makes the whole experience much more pleasant than the short hop in a small plane - particularly for the period between boarding and departure.

It is easy to become complacent about technology but I think the modern age is pretty amazing when you can have internet access in the middle of the Irish Sea. As a result, I felt the need to give it a proper road (or sea?) test and see if it could cope with a blog post. Initial signs were good - it uploaded the screenshot OK - but as I have been typing this I have seen Blogger struggling to save the draft despite still being connected. I guess one disadvantage of the modern age is that when free WiFi is available, everyone logs on! (It took a few attempts to load up the link to my previous Irish ferries coffee post.)

Time to hit “Publish” and see if anything happens…