End the Pet Primate Trade
The U.S. Senate is the last hurdle for the Captive Primate Safety Act that would end the trade in "pet" primates.
Keeping primates as pets causes needless suffering for chimpanzees, macaques, baboons and other species. Primates are wild animals -- unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Sometimes their teeth or fingernails are filed down or removed in an effort to make them seem safe, but they still bite and cause serious injuries to people, often to children. Plus, nonhuman primates can carry harmful diseases such as Ebola, tuberculosis, and herpes-B.
The Captive Primate Safety Act (H.R. 80) will prohibit the import, export, and interstate commerce in nonhuman "pet" primates. Here's the bottom line: Wildlife belongs in the wild. The Senate must pass this important bill -- please contact your senators right now.
Dear Senator,
I am extremely encouraged that we are so close to the passage of H.R. 80, the Captive Primate Safety Act, which would end the trade in nonhuman primates if they are to be kept as "pets." I urge you to contact the Senate Majority Leader and ask him to bring up the bill for a vote as soon as possible.
I was horrified by last year's chimpanzee attack in Connecticut that left a 55-year-old woman in critical condition. We must do all we can to prevent tragedies such as this from ever happening again.
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The Captive Primate Safety Act is commonsense legislation, narrowly-crafted to address the trade in nonhuman primates as "pets." These wild animals are potentially aggressive and dangerous and across the country both children and adults have been bitten by a variety of primate species.
Nonhuman primates require special care, housing, diet, and maintenance that the average person cannot provide. Many of these animals are euthanized, abandoned, or doomed to live in deplorable conditions.
Furthermore, nonhuman primates can carry potentially dangerous diseases such as yellow fever, monkey pox, Ebola and Marburg virus, tuberculosis, herpes-b, and Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), the primate form of HIV. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) asserts that the increase in macaque monkeys in the pet trade may constitute an emerging infectious disease threat in the United States.
[Your name]
