Animal activists rescue SA monkey

[Guest guest]

[ACRES] Animal activists rescue SA monkey

 

 

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimes/newsst/newsst1083674384.a

sp

Animal activists rescue SA monkey

Tuesday May 04, 2004 14:39 - (SA)

 

SINGAPORE - An African monkey who was kidnapped and kept illegally in

chains

in Singapore for five years flew back to his home continent on a

commercial

plane on Tuesday after being rescued by animal activists.

 

Animal Concerns Research and Education Society of Singapore (Acres)

president Louis Ng said a sailor had smuggled the vervet monkey,

nicknamed

Blue, into the Southeast Asian nation from South Africa and sold him as

a

pet.

 

Singapore authorities confiscated Blue last year after the daughter of

his

owner alerted a US-based animal rights group, which in turn informed

Acres.

 

Ng said Acres worked with the Singaporean Agri-Food and Veterinary

Authority

to rescue Blue, who was found chained, kept in a cage and with abrasions

around his neck.

 

" He really didn't like living with the chain around his neck all the

time.

It was a pretty sad condition, " Ng said.

 

Ng said Blue's new home would be the Munda Wanga Sanctuary in Zambia

where

he would live in a large enclosure with other vervet monkeys.

 

Blue's 16-hour journey back to Africa was to be on board two commercial

flights, the first on Singapore Airlines to Johannesburg and the second

to

Lusaka on South African Airways.

 

Ng said he would not receive any special treatment, travelling in a

wooden

crate in the cargo holds.

 

Primates are not allowed to be kept as pets in Singapore, and it is

illegal

to import them without a license. Offenders caught owning an endangered

species face a maximum fine of 5,000 dollars (2,941 US).

 

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said Blue's owner, whom they did

not

identify, was fined just 200 Singapore dollars.

 

Ng said Blue was the first pet primate to be repatriated from Singapore,

although Acres was working to help return up to six confiscated gibbons

to

their homes in Thailand and Indonesia.