Primates as Pets — House of Commons, 2017-04-24
Topic: Environment
Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (Conservative, Centre-right): It is always a pleasure to be in the same place as the hon. Gentleman, as we are in this debate. I will come on to address that point and a possible solution, which the Minister has heard before, having kindly agreed to me myself and Dr Cronin. As I was saying, there is no doubt that these monkeys are suffering. Let us compare the circumstances in a cage in someone’s kitchen with what happens in the wild, where marmosets pair-bond for life and bring up extended, exuberant families, and every monkey participates in caring for the younger ones. They are never alone and they live for 15 years. Tragically, barely weaned infants are handed over by unscrupulous breeders who rely partly for their profits on the fact that marmosets almost always bear twins, after a gestation period of about four months. The males are sold on, while the females are kept for breeding. They may survive physically, but their captivity is nothing short of torture. Remember, these are primates: they share more than 90% of their DNA with their human cousins—us. That proportion rises to approximately 98.6% for chimps and bonobos, which are our closest relatives on the evolutionary tree, according to the Smithsonian Institution. Such treatment of chimps and bonobos would be considered immoral; indeed, there are laws to protect them Almost exactly a year ago, Dr Cronin and I, along with the former Genesis front man Peter Gabriel, delivered a petition bearing 110,000 signatures to Downing Street. The UK primate pet trade petition asked the Government to change the law so that all monkeys would be guaranteed a standard of care, as is already mandatory in zoos and wildlife parks. The Minister kindly said that he would put forward a law for a regulatory system that would ensure appropriate care. Since then, regrettably, we have heard nothing. That is understandable, given all the recent political upheavals—I know that my hon. Friend the Minister has been extremely busy—but according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs code of practice working group, the number of primates kept as pets in the UK is thought to be between 1,200 and 5,000 Dr Cronin says she has seen an "exponential explosion" in the British monkey pet trade, with ever-growing numbers of monkeys needing rescuing. In the past 30 years, Monkey World in Dorset has rescued 106 pet-trade monkeys. Of those, 53 have been rescued since 2012, in an accelerating catastrophe caused mainly, Dr Cronin suspects, by social media. Many rescued primates come from decent, well-meaning but inexperienced owners who were duped into thinking they had bought pets that were easy to look after. In a recent police raid, Dr Cronin was asked to rescue a tiny infant marmoset that was freezing to death in a bird cage in a darkened city flat. She says that that is proof that the Animal Welfare Act 2006 is simply not working The 2006 Act was passed to cover the care and welfare of all animals—domestic and wild. Under it, DEFRA published a code of practice for the welfare of privately kept non-human primates in 2010, which explained, among other things, that it was inappropriate to keep these animals alone in domestic settings for the purposes of companionship or personal interest. In March 2016, DEFRA announced that it planned to review the code of practice and would make recommendations for any changes to the code within a year. However, the Commons Library has been unable to find any information on the result of the review or any plans or proposals. Dr Cronin says that although the Animal Welfare Act can be enforced, it does not enforce the conditions in which primates should be kept. Instead, it is most often used to prosecute cruelty or neglect cases after the fact Five different laws cover the care of any one monkey in this country. The Zoo Licensing Act 1981 has the strongest laws governing species-specific care, and applies to any parks that are open to the public. Under that Act, some 200 Government inspectors on a constant inspection regime apply extremely rigorous standards covering animal welfare, health and hygiene, safety, ethics and other areas Under British law, primates are divided into two classifications. Non-dangerous primates, which can be bought and sold without any form of checking or regulation, make up the 66 species that I mentioned earlier. The rest are classified as dangerous, as specified under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, which focuses on protecting owners, not the animals, and fails to acknowledge any duty of care for them. Interestingly, smaller monkeys were declassified on the basis of the size and shape of their canine teeth Thirdly, the pet shop licence laws of 1951 and 1983 cover pet shops that sell primates. Fourthly, the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925 and its 2012 regulations cover circus animals, while fifthly the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 covers animals in laboratories. Dr Cronin believes it is not logical that the same monkey could be subject to all the above laws to a greater or lesser degree, particularly as none seems to work properly. For example, she says that Monkey World’s most chronic problem is with the legal trade in primates as pets in the United Kingdom How do we solve this problem? The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Veterinary Association and the Born Free Foundation all advocate an outright ban on the ownership and trading of primates. However, Dr Cronin believes that such a move is neither realistic nor necessary. She suggests that we need a practical solution to ensure that these small primates are kept appropriately—I agree with her. Marmosets, tamarins and squirrel monkeys need to be registered under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976. Alternatively, a register of primates that are kept as pets could be implemented, like the one for dangerous dogs, as suggested by the Minister himself at a meeting with Dr Cronin and me last June Additionally, the Zoo Licensing Act 1981, policed by local authorities, could be imposed on licensed private owners, pet shops, breeders and dealers. If required, the existing large national team of professional zoo inspectors could then be used to assess applications. Extending this existing standard of care to the pet trade would prevent the sale of individual monkeys over the counter, or on the internet, to those who simply do not understand what they are taking on. It seems to me and Dr Cronin, as well as many others, that the best solution is to require private owners to meet the standards imposed on zoos and game parks. Were those standards applied, I am sure we would all agree that no domestic user could possibly meet them, so keeping a monkey in one’s home, garage or anywhere else would be impossible. I humbly ask the Minister to please consider changing the existing laws, as he suggested last year, to make sure that all primates sold in Britain are properly protected, as they surely deserve to be.