Across the U.S., Primates Suffer as Pets
Across the United States, thousands of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates are kept as pets in private homes. Finding Sanctuary: Life after the Primate Pet Trade, which was featured in the 2022 Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, explores the current legal landscape in the U.S.; the horrendous suffering of the animals kept as pets; the dangers of keeping primates as pets; and tells the stories of a few individual monkeys who made it out of the pet trade to find a new life at the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary, one of the largest primate sanctuaries in the United States.
As we celebrate the new lives of the monkeys who found sanctuary, sanctuaries are not the solution to the epidemic of primate pet ownership; federal action is needed. Calling on experts from advocacy, sanctuary care, law enforcement, and more, this documentary calls for the passage of the Captive Primate Safety Act, a federal bill that would prohibit the interstate commerce of primates as pets, ban the private ownership of these species, and restrict direct contact between the public and primates.
