SPIDER MONKEY IN CHAINS IN SÃO PAULO

AN SOS FAUNA OPERATION

The photos of this article are frightful. Nevertheless, for a lot of years the Environmental Police was being sent alerts and nothing was done. This spider monkey of white forehead is threatened to extinction and arrived to a man through poachers. The man put him in chains for years in the backyard of his house in the region of ABC, great São Paulo.

Spider monkeys are our most social and docile primates, and it is very easy to interact with them. They are monkeys that live in the Amazon forest, on the top of the trees and hardly get to the floor. They have an extraordinary agility and jump big distances from one branch to other.
 
Unbelievably, the first alert about this case to the Environment Police would have occurred in 1993 and, according to information given to SOS Fauna, the authority of Judicial Police at the time would have decided to give the ownership of the monkey to the man. In 2005 the alert was made again and according to information of Environmental Police, which went to the house to check the situation, the primate had not been confiscated because there was a document of ownership. But they did not consider article 32 of Environmental Crimes Law, which defines mistreating. In fact, due to mistreating this monkey should already have been confiscated in 1993.

Recently, in March 2009, when SOS Fauna went to the local together with Environment Police, the man did not present the ownership document and the monkey was under the conditions seen in the photos, but even though the monkey continued "under care" of his owner.

This primate came from trafficking and there is no doubt about that. He "accomplished his penalty" of more than 15 years of prison. And, what is more serious, the authorities knew about everything. When SOS Fauna was alerted about the existence of this monkey, we called the Police, which did not take the unique right decision: to confiscate the animal. They talked about "affection between the monkey and the man, and that the monkey would suffer". We were consulted and gave them our judgment, that these monkeys are very intelligent. If they experiment a life without a chain, with facilities that will allow them to jump and to have a minimum space needed for a good life, they will forget about the one who maintained him imprisoned for all his life. We even offered to receive the monkey, as long as we have two spider monkeys of white forehead with us.

Environmental Police ended up confiscating the monkey and sent him to a zoo. It took 10 years to apply a clear law, because in cases like these the existence of mistreating is evident.