Blogging About Critters Since 2007

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Stupid TLC Show Called "My Monkey Baby"

Thanks to Chimpanzee Information for pointing this travesty out.

It's a TLC show about humans that adopt monkeys and treat them as their children. This is seriously weird stuff.
Monkey business is big business in the United States, where some people pay up to $5,000 to adopt a monkey of their own, often a capuchin monkey, which can grow up to 22 inches and 9 pounds. There are hundreds of videos on the Internet of proud parents enjoying their monkeys, and an estimated 15,000 monkeys live with humans as pets or surrogate children in the United States.

And in some cases, monkey babies are more than pets: They are sons and daughters. These families dress their monkeys, feed them at the dinner table and treat them like any other member of the family.

I don't care how much these people love their "babies," these are wild animals that should be with their own kind. They are not humans and it's not psychologically healthy for them to be treated that way. Remember Travis? Second of all, this exploitative show only encourages people to make stupid impulse purchases or adoptions. Who suffers? The individual primate and the species that is depleted for this "trade."

Stupid TLC. Where is the "learning" in that name?

1 comment:

Bea Elliott said...

What a shame... yet more animals stolen from their homes to live artificial lives with superficial humans. I'm saddened, but not surprised.

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