Zoos in Europe insist on practicing the “legal trade” of apes to other zoos in Latin America and elsewhere. Zoos in Portugal interchange chimpanzees with Brazilian zoos, German zoos send orangutans to Brazilian zoos, English zoos sell young gorillas to Brazilian zoos and now the latest information: a Spanish zoo is about to send a 19-year-old orangutan to a Chilean zoo, where there are no apes of that species.

Why does this happen? Simply European zoos are eager for exotic species from other countries and then interchange great primates by other species. Secondly, they appear in the press and on television, as the “preservers” of species that are trade.

The recent case of two young female gorillas, sent irresponsibly by UK John Aspinal Foundation zoos to the zoo in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where a debilitated male gorilla lived and ended up dying, shows the lack of respect for this species practiced by both British and Brazilians zoos.

This “absurd project” allowed British and Brazilian to do tourism with public money for both countries, with the justification of preparing the ground for the transfer, which ended tragically.

The Chilean case is even more absurd. The orangutan Peek was born in 1993 in Rotterdam Zoo, in Holland, and went to Bioparc Zoo Fuengirola, in Spain. In a mysterious transaction, the Spanish zoo is planning to send Peek, in May, to Buin zoo, in Chile, which never had an orangutan and probably has no idea how to keep it.

What is the purpose of the “legal trade” of apes? First of all, to promote the zoos involved, and generate public fundraising, propaganda, gain visibility and promote travel and advertising for humans of both institutions involved in the transaction. The orangutan is a mere object in the hands of people who do not have the slightest commitment to the preservation of this extraordinary species, who does not exist to be subjected to the public harassment in a zoo.

Hopefully CITES, which was thus created to preserve the species, starts to ban this “legal trafficking” of endangered species, which contributes nothing to perpetuate their existence.