The Captive Primate Safety Act

My dad and his brothers and sisters had a pet monkey when they were kids. A neighbor who had been drafted to Vietnam in the 60’s and had brought home with him the exotic pet. He soon realized that he could not or did not want to handle the high demanding pet, and brought it to my grandma and grandpa’s house for their kids to have. My dad’s family found the animal to be temperamental, hyper, entertaining and as my dad describes it, “just an overall squirrelly little thing”. From his description I would assume it is some relation to the squirrel monkey. Devastatingly, the animal had gotten out of the house somehow in the dead of a Wisconsin winter and froze to death.

As fun as it sounds to have a pet monkey, animal guardianship (I prefer not to call it ownership), particularly of certain protected species, should not be taken lightly - especially by those who are not trained veterinarians or other certified animal behaviorists or experts. For my 20-25 page final paper topic I have chosen to write about H.R.80, or the Captive Primate Safety Act, which seeks to “amend the Lacey Act Amendments of 1981 to treat non-human primates as prohibited wildlife species under that Act, to make corrections in the provisions relating to captive wildlife offenses under that Act, and for other purposes”. H.R.80 was introduced in the 110th Congress without success and was reintroduced in the 111th due to a near fatal chimpanzee attack on a woman leading to severe handicap and disfiguration. The Lacey Act Amendments, which actually combined the Lacey Act of 1900 with the Black Bass Acts of 1926, make it unlawful for a person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase a live animal of any prohibited wildlife species in interstate or foreign commerce. This amendment would include non-human primates as a “prohibited wildlife species” under the act.

Just a few days ago, on March 12, 2009 the bill was referred to the Senate committee, was read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.