Rescued ‘pet’ Mali arrives to the WFFT Centre.

At the end of last week, a woman living in the village of Tha Karm, not to far from the WFFT Wildlife Rescue Centre, ask to WFFT Vet Team to come to take her monkey away. A family member told the Rescue Team to come pick up a baby female long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) named Mali. Our Team took a small rescue cage to rescue the baby. Arriving at the woman’s place, we were surprised to see a rather large, fat adult long-tailed macaque, she was very stressed and attached with a rope of medium length, by her hip, to a tree.

The owner explained her story. 3 years ago, she bought her as a baby so she could keep her as a pet. Mali spend her days attached to a tree in in front of the house where people around came to see her and feed her with ice cream, candies. During the night, owner and animal sleep together and the woman give her milk.
Last year she brought Mali to a human doctor for her get a contraceptive injection (of course nobody in the house wanted any unexpected babies). Recently Mali bit the woman so she decided to give away her ‘beloved’ pet. Wild animals are not Pets! That’s what happens when people, even if they think they have a ‘connection’ with their atypical member of family, want to domesticate wild animal with wild instincts.

An unthinkable quantity of wild animals (such as many monkeys, apes and other animals) are poached from the wild when babies after moms have been killed, and then are sold as pets or as photo props, or used to entertain tourists in circus shows. As long as people keep ‘loving animals’ when they think that love means possess, approach, touch, get a selfie with, or even wear fur, the ‘exotic’ pet trade, and in general the wildlife trade, will not stop!

So, when our Vet Rescue Team arrived, the cage was not the suitable size for our ” little ” friend. The owner still tried to make her enter the small container (initially perfect for a baby) and after multiple tries she offered to come to the center in the rescue car with Mali on her arms. She was saying she knew how to keep her calm. The drive back went without any problems, and at her arrival our furry fellow had the surprise to be directly welcome by Colgate (one of the center dog) and then by the founder and director of the WFFT centre, Edwin Wiek. We’ll keep you updated on her progression at WFFT. Once out of quarantine she will once again be able to make some friends of her own species.