As many as 1,500 to 3,000 primates – including marmosets, capuchins, lemurs and squirrel monkeys – are kept as pets in the UK. Primates are threatened in all 92 countries in which they live in the wild, yet it is legal to keep and trade primates as pets in the UK.

Primates are under threat from habitat loss, disease, hunting for food (‘bushmeat’), and last but not least, hunting for the live animal trade. Many of the primates commonly kept as pets in the UK are born in captivity; however the very existence of a lucrative market for these prized animals here in the UK is sending a dangerous message to traders and hunters in countries where primates live in the wild. An infant capuchin monkey hunted and taken from the forest may sell for a few pounds at a local market, but in the UK that same capuchin could be sold to a private keeper for up to £2,000. The lure of this large financial return is likely to encourage more poaching and smuggling – and therefore more deaths – of primates in the wild.
As you will have seen in the news recently, orangutans are perilously close to extinction, with fewer than 50,000 remaining in the wild. One of the major threats to the orangutan — ‘the man of the jungle’ — is hunting for the live pet trade. A recent study has revealed that as many as 500 orangutans are traded as pets each year from Kalimantan, Borneo.
Primates are wild animals – whether born in captivity or taken from the wild – and they are not suitable to be kept as pets in our homes. In nature, many species of primates spend their days in large social and/or family groups, leaping through the forest canopy – rarely spending time on the forest floor – whilst foraging for leaves, fruit and insects on which to feed. It is highly unlikely that a private keeper could provide such an environment in captivity, nor one which would ensure all the monkey’s welfare needs are being met.
Please take action now, and help us to protect primates from a life in the pet trade
Primates are threatened in the wild, and the illegal pet trade adds to the many pressures which are pushing primates further towards extinction. Yet, it is still legal to keep primates as pets in the UK.
Please CLICK HERE to send an email to Jim Knight MP, Minister for Biodiversity, calling for him to phase out the keeping of primates as pets in the UK.
The UK Government launched a consultation in July asking for the public’s views on a regulation which could be adopted to prohibit the keeping of monkeys, lemurs and other primates as pets. It is urgent that we show the Minister that the UK public want to see all primates protected from the pet trade...and left in the wild where they belong.
Thanks for all you do,
Fred O’Regan
President and CEO, IFAW