Joys Story

Joy is a 6 year old male stump tailed macaque, and a big one too, weighing in at over 12kg! He was owned by local people who live on the edge of the National Park close to the Rescue Centre. He had been captured as a baby when poachers shot his mother, so he could be sold into the pet trade.

As Joy matured, he became increasingly difficult to handle, and like all wild animals proved to be a very unsuitable pet, particularly since the family who owned him had young children themselves. So Joy ended up shut in a wooden crate in his owners’ front yard, where he has spent the last few years peering through the tiny gaps in the crate at the world outside.

Eventually his owners were persuaded that Joy would be far better off at the Rescue Centre, so on 4th November 2006 a team from the centre took the Mobile Clinic (sponsored by Care for the Wild) on the hour long journey to collect him. When we arrived he was pacing in his crate, which measured around 2m by 1m by 1m high, and which contained no enrichment at all.