Monkeys for sale!
So in general, buying animals is sketchy for any number of reasons. To really generalize, it seems to me that people who get involved in selling animals are interested in profit (obviously) and are generally taking advantage not only of the animals but more over of those purchasing the animals. But let's see how that plays out for monkeys.
We'll start with technicalities. Monkeys become sexually mature at approximately 30 months. Typically a female has a monkey a year, with a 160 day gestation period. Occasionally (like with humans) twins are born, and most births are at night. As logic would suggest, generally monkey births are timed to coincide with an abundance of food in their environment. Specifically, "monkeys living in Brazil, Peru and Colombia have sexual union during June to August which is a dry season. So that the birth may occur on wet season in which food availability is abundant and female can spend less time on foraging." The men are not involved in raising in the baby.
Controversy: problems begin when you recognize that much monkey breeding is done for the purpose of using the off-spring for laboratory trials, i.e., shooting them full of things and treating them in ways that the FDA won't currently allow humans to be treated. In this photo, you can see the protests treatment of monkeys in Nepal.
In fact, 120 airlines around the world have prohibited the transportation of monkeys aboard their planes (only 12 airlines still allow for this). The main issue is that monkeys are often kidnapped from the wild and then transported to these "breeding areas" and then sold as though they were bred there, even though they were actually kidnapped. I suppose it doesn't technically matter, except that western countries can't pillage 3rd world countries for their own amusement and potential scientific gain. That just doesn't go over well.
Speaking of the protesters to the right, Nepal banned the export of monkeys late last year. Not that that necessarily means anything. If you want to see a really brutal video of the treatment of the animals, see here. Even fast-forwarding through it, I had major issues watching it.
But ignoring the political etc. issues, let's say you plan on buying a monkey. Some of them are terribly cute, especially when clinging to toys ( :-)).
Price for a monkey seems to start somewhere around $2500, although depending on the specific type of monkey, the price can be upwards of $10,000. Here is another site with monkeys for sale.Here's an intriguing note on a monkey-for-sale site: "Until now, all primates on our "Monkeys for sale"-page were sold within a month (mostly days after our monthly email)."So evidently there is a high-demand for monkeys.
Perhaps my favorite random site is generally speaking about young children wanting animals and then launches, somewhat inexplicably, into a discussion of pet monkeys. Like that's a standard pet purchase for young children.
Particular concerns including finding a vet that will treat the monkey, getting nasty disease that are rather easily transmitted from monkeys to humans, and the circumstances in which the monkey was raised. Problem with the last being that "primates that are isolated or confined in cramped quarters are far more likely to be neurotic and aggressive," i.e., psychological damage inflicted on infant primates can cause permanent damage, as with humans.
I have to be honest here - I can't possibly understand why a person would want a pet monkey or would want to take care of what has obviously been proven, over and over again, to be an uncontrollable animal. Here are some thoughts along those lines. Since you now can't ship a monkey across state lines, it's going to be even harder to buy a monkey. So ideally this will be less of an issue. Honestly, if you think you need a monkey to pass the time, you really, really need a hobby. Seriously.
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