On a recent day at the Oakland Zoo's animal hospital, across the bay from San Francisco, an endangered Mexican spider monkey leaps onto tree branches, climbs across platforms and swings on ropes in a large kennel-turned-primate playground.
Named Violeta by hospital staff, the monkey — who's about 18 months old — was poached from the wild and smuggled into California, where it's illegal to keep primates as pets.
Violeta came to the zoo in May after her owner surrendered her during a drug bust. For nearly two months, handlers have been teaching her how to behave like a monkey.
"We dedicate hours a day to just sitting with her, socializing, grooming, teaching her how to play correctly and interact with people in a peaceful manner," says Amber Foley, lead hospital keeper.
If all goes well, Foley says, Violeta will be able to live out her life in a troop with other spider monkeys.
But for most pet primates in the United States, a life of chronic stress, malnutrition and illness is far more likely, despite the best intentions of private owners, says Colleen Kinzley, vice president of animal care, conservation and research at the Oakland Zoo.
Kinzley says any time a monkey is living with a human rather than with its kind, "that monkey is suffering terribly because it doesn't have its family and it doesn't have the opportunity to behave as a monkey."
It's a problem fueled by social media influencers, popular television shows and films that romanticize life with these charismatic animals, Kinzley says. That in turn helps feed a brutal pet trade that starts with the killing of countless animals as members of the family troop try to protect babies from poachers.
"What happens is a number of adults are shot out of the trees in order for poachers to get hold of the babies — literally rip the babies out of the arms of the dead and dying mothers," Kinzley says.
An "abnormal" life
California is among the states with total bans on pet primate ownership. Others have partial bans. But in some states it remains legal for people to keep and breed them — something the proposed federal Captive Primate Safety Act is aiming to change.
If passed, the bill would make private ownership and breeding of these animals illegal in all 50 states, where zoo officials and animal welfare groups say most live in unsuitable conditions — many without ever seeing another primate.
"It's completely abnormal for them," says Dr. Andrea Goodnight, an Oakland Zoo veterinarian. "[The primate] has no idea what to do socially, how to function — so you can imagine the level of stress and anxiety that brings to these animals."
Many of the stolen infants that survive the poaching raids die during the smuggling operations. Others, she says, survive trafficking only to die from malnutrition or other illnesses before their first birthday.
"Some of these animals are so traumatized that they'll just huddle in a corner," says Goodnight. "They won't interact, they won't eat and they can literally starve themselves to death because they're just too scared."
She says dietary deficiencies are common among the primates the Oakland Zoo has taken into its rescue program.
"These infants are still very dependent on mom, they're nursing, they're getting mom's milk," she says.
Human food, she says, is very different from their diet in the wild and often results in captive primates suffering serious calcium deficiencies.
"And then they can have what are called pathologic fractures," says Goodnight. "So they literally will walk and break their legs."
For those who make it to sexual maturity — about 4 years of age — life often gets exponentially worse.
"As these animals grow and become more sexually mature they become super dangerous and people aren't able to handle them," she says. That, she adds, is when private owners may find themselves wondering: "'Well, what do I do with this animal?'"
At that point there are few options beyond caging them for life or euthanizing them, says Kinzley.
"If they end up coming back to a zoo or sanctuary as adults, often they are so psychologically damaged it's difficult if not impossible to get them back in a social group," she says.
Yet, she says, it's easy to see the appeal of these humanlike animals — especially the babies.
"People get so attached because these babies bond to them and often it's people who love animals [who have them]," she says. "So we really try to get the word out to people who love animals (that) it's just absolutely the worst thing."
A plan to protect primates
Spider monkeys, like Violeta, are now among the most-trafficked animals and are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
A coalition of zoos and animal welfare groups say passage of the Captive Primate Safety Act, along with public education, is key to protecting primates worldwide.
For now, the bill remains stuck in the House Committee on Natural Resources, as committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., has not scheduled it for an initial debate. The Oakland Zoo, along with a coalition of other zoos and animal welfare organizations, is now lobbying lawmakers for support. Westerman's office did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Congressman Mike Quigley, D-Ill., who introduced the bill in early May, reiterated his "commitment to ensuring we pass this legislation and end the captive primate trade."
While the bill has stalled for now, Violeta's life is finally gaining traction.
After nearly two months of socialization with handlers — as well as a healthy diet that included a calcium-enriched formula to minimize the likelihood of pathologic bony fractures — the little monkey has been given a second chance for a more natural existence.
Late last month, Violeta left the Oakland Zoo hospital to try out life with a troop of spider monkeys at a different zoo, the name of which officials are withholding until the legal case involving her surrender concludes.
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