Another Celebrity, Another Exploited Primate

It has been a while, and for that I apologise. I have found myself at a time in my life where it has not been possible to write everything that I would like to. Earlier in the year I met up with several amazing people who brought this blog back into the forefront of my mind, so I've dusted off the keyboard (with thanks to Haji for all of her technical help and guidance), oiled the cogs and wound up the starting handle to resurrect the writing machine.

The picture that caught my attention on social media this week was of Gordon Ramsay (British Celebrity Chef) with his daughter, holding a young chimpanzee with the caption "Someone's been very naughty".
View One of the pictures here

Well yes, Gordon, yes they have, and it is certainly not the chimpanzee. We see so many images of celebrities posing with exotic animals at the moment that if you didn't know better you could be forgiven for starting to think 'it's not too bad'. But we do know better, and it is. When you're aware of how damaging it can be for these animals to grow up as a pet or in the entertainment industry, it's frustrating to see. When you've seen the physical and behavioural effects of enduring this sort of existance first hand, in animals that have later escaped the exploitation, it is heart breaking.

Chimpanzees are intelligent, sociable animals. They have the mind and the instincts of a chimpanzee, not a human, and they are best off living with other chimpanzees to express themselves as just that, a chimpanzee, not a human in Gordon Ramsay's kitchen. When celebrities pick up a cute baby animal and hire them for a photo shoot, or 'have them round for dinner', they not only have an effect on that individual but on the trade in exotics on a broader scale. It's easy for those of us who can see the damage it does to the individual to get angry and mutter about how stupid people are for keeping pet primates, but if you don't know the dangers to the animal (and the owners) and you see public figures parading around with their menagerie in public, it probably seems reasonable to do so. They have been set an example. Celebrities that have photo shoots with these animals are setting examples, bad ones. These examples are adding fuel to the fire that is the primate pet trade, encouraging people to get hold of these animals and bring them into a life that isn't suitable for them, a life that for a chimp can lead to fifty years of solitary confinement when they're no longer cute and cuddly ad no longer safe to visit Gordon for tea. And if a chimpanzee is too expensive, well that's when the little guys are targeted. The smaller primates like the monkeys and prosimians that end up neglected and isolated in someone's spare room when the novelty wears off, or the starstruck slow loris who'll never know what it is to forage at night in a rainforest, but has sure got a lot of YouTube hits for his owner.

There are plenty of celebrities who use their popularity to do wonderful things and promote worthwhile causes, and there are others who really need to do better.