Why would anyone want to keep snakes, or other exotic animals? It's to do (for us anyway) with fascination, nothing to do with fashion accessories, or to boast, it's pure fascination.

They're amazing to sit and watch their interactions with each other, the world around them, and especially when there's a baby in tow, the poor thing gets a rum deal! I actually saw our female red belly give birth, I think that was probably my primate owning highlight.

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I understand the fascination people have with them but have seen first hand far too many casualties of the exotic pet industry. Primates shouldn't be kept except for very specific reasons.

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Wanted: someone in North London area who can help me learn more about keeping venomous snakes. Happy to donate to food costs etc in return for experience.

Unfortunately some people aren’t like you and Rich and do keep animals for a fashion statement, I have been into private collections to collect bits and the persons come out bragging about how cool this is and that is.

I know that a good friend of yours and Richards has common marmosets or did have and they were housed in half of a bird aviary which was completely substandard and i rate this chap highly so it shows even the accolades such as a shop and 30+ years experience they still get kept in sub-standard conditions.

How young this thread is and already some extremely valid points.

Glidergirl in many ways has summed up how l am starting to view the world of exotic keeping, but she is spot on, it is not about ownership of a fashion trend, it should be about observation, learning curve, study.

I think my problem is two fold, l am starting to look upon primate ownership in a different light, because of the way a lot of ‘wannabe primate keepers’ think that they simply deserve to own this species and also even l am beginning to doubt whether keepers have the facilities to own them.

I know some truly remarkable keepers, that dedicate the right finances to the environment and spend all their time researching and continually doing so, but they are simply very few.

I know that if Nerys was to look into primates on a more serious nature then she would do so properly, we do have the space here to have a really large enclosure, with the right stimulation and environmental inclination and not have anything like the term GRB used which is lovely – being serious – ‘house primate’ l really like that term for its accuracy, but it sickens me to the bones, for this is how many people seemingly think of primates.

I get slammed for the screening, and people have often commented ‘lose that and you will sell more as a business’ but it really does not matter, l am a business, but the animals rights and the husbandry are my main focus not the business finance side. But l have just in fact done more to the screening on the primate side, it is now a very specific primate application, just primates, no longer general. Increased from 19 questions to 44, and has made it more difficult to answer for those whom think that it is all too easy to just google the answers. If you want to keep primates then you have to know them, you have to have done research, spoken to keepers.

The new codes of practice, which l sincerely hope do become active and are not rejected are needed, and l will be sick to the bone if yet another working group is wasted because of this and that. If the codes are rejected then, it will not be long before the likes of Monkey world and RSPCA do push for the prohibition of private primate keeping.

In the last year have really started to become ANK – Anti Numpty Keeper. And that does in turn damage your views of the way you feel, so much so that you really start to look at the ownership of any animal!

I am tired of people wanting Capuchins because this is the answer to in many cases another child, or a replacement child, that they can dress up and harness train!

Of late l have been reading into all sorts of documents from possible cop’s to zoological reports on various species.

Due to lack of regulation, the exact number of primates in private hands will never truly be accountable but their popularity as ‘pets’ has increased – this terms aggravates me, l simply hate the term as many readers will know by my writings already. And to include primate ownership into the term – hobby – simply pisses me off further!

The stupidity of removing primates from the DWAL was as said plain stupidity for it has allowed a deregulation and further more policing of the species – and will lead to further abuse and neglect and increase the chances that primates will be secured to even more parrot cages and not the correct type of enclosures.

I found a very interesting article about primates and the disadvantages of ownership and l had to agree with the writer.

Ultimate Boides also included a very interesting term – cyno – in post 5, a cyno for those who are not familiar is in fact a species of macaque – cyncomolgus – a primate species long used in medical research. Nearly all adult macaques carry B-virus, but macaques alone are not just responsible for carrying numerous infectious agents.

Primates as they mature – more easily recognised in the bigger species, but can be said of the smaller species also – become very unpredictable, and l have known in some cases, extremely aggressive and volatile in their behaviour. People forget the armoury that primates actually carry with their teeth and their nails. Bites can be from painful to serious and in some cases fatal.

Then we look at the fact that they can carry infectious contagion’s that can be transmissible to humans, indeed as many ailments humans have can be passed onto their primates – the likes of viral diseases, fungal diseases, bacterial diseases, parasites, mites,

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/aboutp/pets/zoonoses.html

Far too many wannabe keepers new to primates and sadly not researching believe primates to be harmless and can be raised like children and simply do not have the knowledge that they can be dangerous. Most people purchase primates out of a need to satisfy a whim, curiosity, ‘fashion accessory’ a ‘keep up with the Jones status symbol!

Perhaps a lot of this can not be specifically aimed at some of the smaller species, but with more and more people thinking it is simply okay to want to own the likes of Capuchins and beyond, they simply do not take into consideration that bigger primate, bigger problems.

A 9kg primate can floor a man/woman quicker than most people would care to imagine!

The call from many keepers that they want young primates, because they are hands easy and docile is bull crap, these primates grow! They are incredibly intelligent, and in many cases more so than their owners and as such can soon rise higher in the social family circle than keepers may well imagine. People do underestimate that in the wild these animals are part of highly sophisticated and stern social hierarchy groups. So how just because the term captive bred, hand reared really makes them less docile, less harmless?

Imprinted primates are possibly the worst, they will attain sexual maturity at anywhere between 4 – 8 years of age, and by this time as an imprint will have acquired some pretty non desirable traits, possibly even aggressive ones to boot!

They are an extremely expensive species to maintain when done properly and responsibly, they are messy both in and out of their enclosures, so can not be housebroken, they piss every where, easily startled, can lash out for no reason.

Am l really in favour of primate keeping?

Very much so, but in the right environments, under the right husbandry, with the fact that although no directly they do not have the vote, but you as a keeper do have the political vote and as such, you hold the voting aspect for your animals rights as well as for your own keepers rights.

But l do expect people to truly research their undertaking, primates pending species can live from 20 – 50 years and are not always the cuddly image many beginners seem to perceive, and that this wanton need for the likes of young Capuchins is and must be seen as ridiculous, for under the wrong management, this sort of primate alone can become unmanageable - owners can easily abuse primates by locking them away in a ‘cage’ and thinking that the monkey is happy! When the reverse is occurring!

Difficult primates, imprinted primates are virtually impossible to rehome, and are sadly through no fault of their own, are better off dead than in captivity. GOD, l never thought l would agree or see sense to that term, but it is a truth statement here.

The need by those who wish to keep, the constant call for young marmosets – 3-5 months – unacceptable! To want this is damaging your primates needs, they are neglected the parenting from their mothers – their real mothers – needed because without it, your desires are cheating them of their physical and psychological development. You would not expect to be told as a parent that your children were to be taken away from you just after birth or a few months later, because another person wanted them for their pet, would you?

So l say to those, stop expecting this off primates!

Those who want to keep singles, grow up or a better term would be get over yourselves, primates are not domesticated such as the cat and dog, they are still a wild animal, you can not furnish that animal with the right needs, environment, companionship nor health, to keep in a single environment is killing it softly but albeit, killing it!

So no, l still fail to see what people see, if they want as many do, to maintain them in the totally wrong unresearched environment.

But maybe that is just me as an ANK!

Rory Matier
PKL: Pro Keepers' Alliance

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WEll bloody said!!! (insert clappy hand smiley here)

It is a sad shame that more suppliers and breeders of primates didn't follow the strict guidelines you do for primates Rory. Fact is that these are not "pets", they are specialist exotics who require more than your average pet keeper to enable them to develop correctly and there are a sadly low number of people who can offer them this.

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how could you not want an animal that plays with itself and flings its own crap at elderly visitors?

no but seriously, i dont really understand it too much either. i do love primates even though they are thieving gits somtimes.... but the level of care required and time needed just doesnt make them condusive with a normal life. any private keeper would need to be extremely well off to dedicate the time they need. probably wouldnt be able to work 8-10 hours a day and have enough hours in the day to sort out diet, enrichment etc.

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My name's Dave. like everybody else on this forum.

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And in many respects that is correct Dave.

Primates are demanding, is it simply enough just to have a pair?

Perhaps the answer is in fact to run a troop, where upon there would be several interactions and exchanges going on at the same time between the species - this is how they are in the natural environment, sure, there are many species that have solitary animals, but are these usually not on the outskirts on the community, so they still share in the comradery?

The sad fact and no, even then that is not right - it is not a sad fact, it is a hard brutal fact. I am becoming harder on primate keepers, my clients now expect me to be harder on primate keepers or those making enquiry into the ownership of primates.

I am instructed on an almost weekly basis, of how this should be, and how that should be, plus what l install myself, combined with the legislation, the market politics, what the anti groups think, what they would like to see the list is endless, and to think that is just what is involved in the selling of them and ensuring that they go into the right responsible ownership.

Running primates within the collection of a keeper must be done to the same hymn sheet, it must be dedicated time, it must be enthusiastic interest. Its a full time job, looking after exotic animals - it is a full time responsibility looking after any animal.

The TSKA Consultancy website is changing in the next 4 weeks - a complete overhaul, which means a new website is being built, a new professional image based website, that will concentrate on codes of practice, politics, legislation, husbandry, the works.

We are in a new era, where upon things of yesteryear are no longer acceptable when it comes to animal ownership - people, both keeper and non keepers view this site, pro keepers and anti keepers, regulators and deregulators, all of them watch how we work.

So with so much pure concentration upon how we operate as a consultancy, this is why l am so oft confused as to why many novice, wannabe and beginner keepers do not undertake the consideration to ownership with a more in depth responsibility?

Primates are extremely political, and more and more questions like l have raised with this thread alone are being asked, if they were not, why does the opposition feel the need to push for prohibition on so many species?

I have raised this with primates, but it could be raised with any number of the species we keep. Yes indeed, many could throw the question back at me about the skunks Nerys and l have......do you not think that l also think about other species in captivity the same way as l do about primates?

Of course l do!

And the TSKA Consultancy will be displaying this type of 'moral challenge' in respect to all keepers.

People l suppose in many ways do not refer to me as an anti for no apparent reason. I am not anti keeping, l am very much for pro keeping - but pro keeping and the right to do so, does not mean that it is an easy path to follow does it?

I am probably worse than an anti, they are against the keeping of any animal predominately exotics, l am a pro keeper with anti keeping views! You try living with it, am l right to think this way? Of course l am, for this how we should all be viewing the way we keep.

We are supposed to be far better in the way we review things, apparently the antis do so with very little knowledge - but when l think about primates and the numpties out there, l tend to side with the opposition more.

R

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Pretty much my own sentiments tbh. You know far more than I, and I cant really go into the detail of the politics and law regarding them.

However, Having gotten into the exotic pet "hobby" only a short while ago, I am finding myself more and more anti keeping of just about everything. There is so much ignorance in the industry, and the keepers...argh. I won't name any names, but the person who owns 1000 reptiles/cats/inverts/dogs and continually posts on here that they are ill rather than taking them to the vets is a prime example. Grr, I feel my blood getting angried up!

I just think that in all but exceptional cases, Primates are that step too far (1) in terms of keeping as pets. To me, they are the sort of thing that should remain wild. Whilst I'd love to see inverts get the same respect, they CAN be catered for in small tanks, and individually. Its a different legue with Primates. I have to admit, there has to be some real passion, or some real ignorance to even try keeping Primates. Its a scary challenge.

[(1) There are a lot of other pets I feel need this same approach...not all the same size scale as lions etc. I think some T's deserve to be well left alone...seriously, why are Cobalt blues so popular?!]

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"All I know is my gut says maybe"

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Member of the BAS and AAS.

Really? Hmmmmm, I only know of a breeder with marmosets and he doesn't keep them in half a bird aviary, I don't know of anyone else with them currently. I'm intrigued now, who was it, is he REALLY a good friend, and who are you?

I can't bear the fashion statement thing, there are too many people who 'want a monkey', it makes me sick quite frankly!!

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In many respects l agree.

It is not that l don't want to see them owned, but l want to see them owned properly and not just half heartedly as many keepers do so. I can not speak about Tarantulas, for l have not got a great deal of knowledge there.

I get sick and tired of seeing posts, with so very little body to them when it comes to the ownership of this species [primates]. Tired of the same old excuses, of we have one and it lives in a....... but not for long! Or we have a single now, and although not ideal, it will not be for long!

Its my pet, and l know what is best for it!

Genuinely responsible primate keepers are passionate, not the wannabe buyers, who see them as 'pets' for the latter is not what they are at all. It is foolhardy to see that term used by the ignorant.

R

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