Primates in Private Hands

In privately owned zoos? Yes, hundreds. Here's just a few privately-owned zoos in Australia that hold primates:

Gorge Wildlife Park
National Zoo and Aquarium
Symbio Wildlife Park
Darling Downs Zoo
Mogo Zoo
Alma Park Zoo
Halls Gap Zoo
Australia Zoo
Crocodylus Park

And no doubt many smaller places that have macaques, capuchins and some marmosets.

You can add Mansfield Zoo who have 5 rhesus macaques and a bonnet macaque.
Also I found this on an Australian classifieds website.
Gorgeous Capuchin Monkey For Adoption - Perth, Australia - Free Classifieds - Muamat
 
we get the same ads for pet capuchins in NZ on sites like trademe
 
I know this is an old thread and even though I have been a member of this forum for several years I do not check it out very often due to many reasons.

The organisation I represent became aware that people in Victoria and NSw were allowed to keep pet primates but we campaigned to make this illegal and indeed it was changed in 1996.

The background as we learnt in our campaign was that in the 1960's someone tried to bring a monkey into Australia from overseas. Quarantine looked into the matter at that time and it was decided that the Quarantine act as it stood in the 60's was to prevent the spread of disease and that if the primate had no disease it could enter unless the state had legislation preventing this. At that time all states brought about legislation making it illegal except NSW and Victoria.

We became aware of the problem when a pet shop started to sell monkeys in NSW. They were bred by a breeder for sale.

After a 2 year campaign it became illegal apart from people who already had them. In very rare circumstances in NSW a person can still get a licence to keep them but it has to be rare circumstances such as someone who has primates dies and a family member applys for the licence so they do not need to be put down.

As far as I am aware there were no marmosets in private hands. There were mainly macaques, a few spider monkeys, at one stage a couple of de Brazzas (now deceased) and two chimps which actually belonged to a zoo family but were not used as zoo animals. These are now in a zoo. I was not aware of hundreds of baboons or capuchins as pets.

When the legislation went through in 1996 there were approx (from what I remember) about 50 owners but at last time I enquired a few years ago that number had gone down to less than 17 people. They are trying to phase out private ownership altogether and they are getting close to this as the number of licences gets smaller every year.

I was on the govt committee that brought about the changes and set keeping standards.


Also primates in private hands means primates that belong to private individuals and not primates belonging to research institutions (such as the marmosets at Monash), primates owned by zoos, or primates used in film and television work.

The non Idigenous animals committees were against primates as pets because they were an agricultural and environmental risk in Australia. In fact it was because they were an agricultural and environmental risk that he keeping of them was banned. They had the potential to become another feral animal.

Zoopro is right in that there are in fact very few primates kept in private hands and in recent years a lot have died of old age.

One person had quite a few (not hundreds or even a hundred but well under that) but that person was taking monkeys from zoos that were closing down that had no where else to go but that is no longer happening.

As for researchers holding hundreds of monkeys as their own private monkeys, I dare to say this is incorrect and totally illegal. Also there are not that many held by research institutions because they are far too expensive to keep and using monkeys in experiments is not really acceptable to much of the public so they are under a fair amount of scrutiny.

I have also visited many labs in Australia and most researchers do not want to keep them privately. Working with them they realise they do not make good pets.
 
It is still illegal to obtain primates as pets in all states. In 1996 when the legislation was changed 50-60 people applied for licences. That figure is now down to 5-6 people. The intention is to have no owners at all and time will see that happen. A member of the public challenged the legislation in court recently when refused a permit to get macaques as pet. The court upheld the legislation.
 
It is still illegal to obtain primates as pets in all states. In 1996 when the legislation was changed 50-60 people applied for licences. That figure is now down to 5-6 people. The intention is to have no owners at all and time will see that happen. A member of the public challenged the legislation in court recently when refused a permit to get macaques as pet. The court upheld the legislation.

The person you are speaking of applied for a permit to obtain a different species of macaque to what he already owned. The challenge was over DPI's reasons for declining the permit.
 
Is it virtually impossible now for the NSW DPI to grant anyone a permit to keep exotics (other then hoof stock like blackbuck) such as primates or carnivores? It might seem a bit off tangent but does anyone know what kind of licence wild animal encounters has? they are not a zoo but keep some pretty interesting exotics, mobile exhibitor perhaps?
 
They would have to be a mobile exhibitor. Same as a circus or petting zoo. I was surprised they were able to get approval for servals given the massive threat they could potentially pose.
 
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