MY MONKEY BABY – Channel 4
There are around 15,000 monkeys living in people’s homes in America. For some owners, the human-like qualities of monkeys turn them into more than just household pets. Some monkeys even become members of the family, as a preferred option to having children. My Monkey Baby looks at couples who raise monkeys. What makes a couple take on a 40-year commitment to an eternal toddler? How strong is the mother/ monkey attachment? And can a monkey really become a child substitute?
Tuesday 2 June 2009
10:00pm
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me and my mum will watch that. the way they treat the monkeys is silly.
I can’t wait – this looks like an extraordinary programme. it’s C4 so you know there will be to it than the obvious – and even if thee isn’t what could be cuter than watching an hour of monkeys. I am sick of animal rights freaks over reacting – when obviously these animal are more loved than most dogs. Can’t wait.
Iam not saying they treat the monkeys badly but iam saying they go OTT when they look after monkeys. I bet half of the monkeys dont like to dress up. there monkeys not dolls.
@judith
it’s not about LOVE, it’s about providing for an animals needs. And humans can’t do that with monkeys, at least not in the setting we see here. Dogs have been domesticated for 10,000 years, and many generations of selective breeding has created an animal that is happy to live with a human pack. Try to keep a wolf as a pet and you usually end up with an agressive, fearful, neurotic mess of an animal. Monkeys are not, and cannot be, domesticated. An adult monkey is a highly intelligent, social and often agressive and destructive animal. They need company of their own kind, constant stimulation and a kind of care that humans just can’t give in a “household” setting. There are many sanctuaries all over the US that get dozens of people every day desperate to find a new home for an animal that has become dangerously agressive, self mutilating, OCD, depressed and generally miserable. Most of these sanctuaries are full to bursting and unable to take new arrivals. Animals that do get in exhibit disturbed and unnatural behaviours, and take a long time to integrate into social groups. Most have never seen another monkey since they were removed from their mothers at 3 days old. Many have been surgically mutilated, with teeth and even fingernails removed. Many are castrated or have had their ovaries removed; a routine operation in an animal like a dog or cat, a horrible trauma for an inteligent primate where sexual behaviour forms a major part of adult life.
Treating a monkey like a child IS abuse, however much love is intended.
IF a private individual is determined to keep monkeys as pets they need: a large (LARGE) outdoor enclosure or ideally monkey-secured open space, where they can keep a socially bonded group, providing constantly changing enrichment, a complex varied diet and not attempting to handle or train the monkeys. Essentially, they need to act like a sanctuary for wild animals, not a monkey mommy.
these people should just get a dog, they have been bred to be excellent companions for people, and will be far less traumatised by this kind of treatment.
Just to clear things up: I am not an ‘animal rights’ activist! I’m a Zoologist. Having worked with Ex-pet monkeys for over 12 years I can give many reasons as to why they are the worst possible pet ever. I can give many reasons why it is the most cruel and unacceptable practice. I can give many reasons why it’s actually extremelly dangerous to do so! But I won’t! here’s all the reasons why you should.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
…….
;o)
I cannot believe these people.
I watched in utter revulsion and disgust as American couples ‘adopted’ tiny monkeys as ’surrogate children’.
I have a few serious issues with this program, the two most serious being that in the clips of the newly ‘adopted’ monkey ‘Butter’, the baby primate is taken into the room where its mother is, having been forcefully removed only 10 days previously.
Not only does this severely agitate the mother, which is cruel and definately unnecessary, but it is also extremely unkind.
These people who have taken into their care a baby primate are not even prepared to face the consequences of their ‘baby’ growing up and becoming rambunctious and loud, a natural thing for a monkey, but in fact are trying to hide their ‘daughter’.
Were these parents of a real child, to try and hide their baby would be not only frowned upon and disapproved of, but it would be considered morally wrong.
The other complaint that i have is why does Channel 4 endorse these views of ‘adopting’ animals as ‘children’ when there are thousands of children around the world that are orphans or in severe need of help from a family, and no mention is made of this on C4?
Even as a 20 year old student i am utterly disgusted with this program, and that C4 allowed it to be showed when it will only encourage people to pick an easy option and have a pet as a ‘child’ rather than helping children who can’t help themselves.
I only turned and watched this programme for a second where they new parents (or baby snatchers a better word for it) and to see monkey breaders take a baby 10days old away and then the new parents/snatchers parade the little one in front of the bio mother was so evil I cant work out what goes through peoples mind when they can do these things to another life, you start to wonder whether a higher being exists to let an innocent life suffer.
How could the baby monkey snatchers take the monkeys baby away from the mother? The monkey never choosed to give her baby monkey away. How can they stand in front of the baby monkeys mother holding her baby then walking away with the monkeys baby? Thats sick evil and dam right twisted. I thought why dont they adopt a human baby instead of taking a monkeys baby away from her.
totally agree Summer