Protect Nonhuman Primates—Support the Captive Primate Safety Act

Quit monkeying around and lobby a little! All you have to do is visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center, where you can click on this form and send a letter to your U.S. senators and representative asking them to support and cosponsor the Captive Primate Safety Act. You’ll get to see a copy of your letter before you send it. It’s nice and simple—the work has already been done for you! Just click and send, and you’ll be doing a great thing for our primate friends. Below are details of this important legislation:

The Captive Primate Safety Act
Sponsor(s): Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA); Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
ASPCA Position: Support
Action Needed: Send a letter to your U.S. senators and representative urging them to support the Captive Primate Safety Act.

The Captive Primate Safety Act would bar interstate commerce of nonhuman primates for the pet trade, including monkeys, apes, marmosets and lemurs. This vital legislation would protect the public and captive primates from the dangers that result when these exotic animals are sold as pets.

Nonhuman primates pose a number of dangers to the public. First, they carry viruses and diseases that can be transmitted to humans, including Ebola virus, Herpes B virus, monkeypox, simian immunodeficiency virus, tuberculosis and yellow fever. Because of these health risks, it already is illegal to import nonhuman primates into the country for the pet trade. However, primates already in the United States may be moved in interstate commerce and sold as pets. The Captive Primate Safety Act will close this loophole in current law.
Second, primates typically do not make good pets because they often become aggressive as they get older and stronger. As infants, they may appear cooperative and easy to handle, but as they grow, they can easily overpower humans and may lash out unpredictably when frightened or frustrated. Biting and scratching are normal behaviors for these animals, and their large teeth can inflict serious injury.

In addition to the dangers nonhuman primates pose to the public, they often do not receive proper care when they are kept as pets. Captive primates require specific diets, companionship of other nonhuman primates and large enclosures that allow for climbing and swinging. Unfortunately, most pet owners do not meet these needs—and as a result, captive primates often live in inadequate conditions.

Please take action now by urging your U.S. senators and representative to support and cosponsor this important legislation.

Urge U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Save the Sheldon Range Wild Horses!

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has been engineering a plan to eradicate the Sheldon Range wild horses in Nevada. USFWS claims that the Sheldon horses are non-indigenous and feral, and therefore not protected by law. The reasons given for their removal are to protect the water resources and to enhance the populations of pronghorn antelope and sage grouse, two species that bring in revenue from special hunting permits. However, a paper published by USFWS found that wild horses, in reasonable numbers, have no demonstrable adverse affect on these species.

USFWS’s plan, if implemented, would make it impossible for rescues and individuals to directly adopt small numbers of Sheldon horses, as has been done in the past. The “more efficient” plan allows for only mass adoptions of horses to three “carefully screened” agents. The agents will be paid $300 per horse to take them by the truckload. There is no doubt that many of these horses will end up at auction, and ultimately at slaughter. In fact, 40 Sheldon horses bought by one of the agents were recently “bought back” from a slaughter plant by the agent who had previously “adopted” them from USFWS.

Also disturbing, USFWS has announced that they are planning another gather of Sheldon wild horses in June—in the middle of foaling season! A gather at this time represents a cruel assault on the pregnant mares, who may abort their foals, as well as risks to the new-born foals, including foals being separated from their mothers, trampled to death, or run to exhaustion. USFWS has offered no explanation for the unusual timing for the upcoming gather.

Please contact the US Fish and Wildlife Service directly and ask them to put a halt to their plan to eradicate the SheldonRange wild horses! Go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?agencyindid=790&type=AN and write a letter to The Honorable H. Dale Hall, Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Use the sample letter to Congress as a guide.

Also, please contact your senators and representatives today and ask them to urge USFWS to put a halt to the plan to eradicate the Sheldon Range wild horses until the proper environmental studies have been conducted, and until the safety of any captured horses can be ensured! Take Action Now!

It is urgent that both Congress and the Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service hear from you immediately! Thank you for your support on this issue.