For many years we have been campaigning for Welfare 4 Wildlife; a change in the law to protect over 80 species of monkey which can be kept legally as pets in the UK under current legislation. You can see more details of our petition by clicking here In 2017, the government dismissed our 114,000 strong petition during a parliament adjournment debate, & insisted that current laws are protecting primates. We then launched our campaign on the pet trade in 2018 and asked you to help us STAMP it out- Stop Trade & Abuse of Monkeys as Pets.

We are pleased to announce that our campaign has been successful, and on the 8th June 2021, the Kept Animals Bill was introduced in parliament, which will ban the sale and trade of primates as pets in the UK!

Thank you to all who have written letters, emails, signed petitions, shared posts and answered the call for evidence and public consultation. Thank you for continuing to stand up for those pet primates without a voice!

Below is all the evidence and data as to why keeping primates as pets is inappropriate, and the story of our campaign. Please watch this space for updates!

On the 12th December 2020, the government announced an 8-week public consultation into banning the trade of primates as pets. Thank you to all who took the opportunity to speak up for those monkeys in the pet trade, who have no voice and told the government your views on whether primates should be kept as pets!

The consultation closed on the 6th February 2021, and was the final step towards changing the law to finally protect primates kept in the UK today!

Please scroll down, and read our past campaign, including our response to DEFRA’s public consultation in 2020 and call for evidence in 2019, which outlines our view on how we think the legislation should change to protect primates.

Monkey World’s Pet Trade Evidence

On October 25th 2019, Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) announced a call for evidence on the welfare of primates kept as pets in England.

This is an amazing step forward, and we are hopeful it will lead toward a ban on the sale of primates as pets in England.

The call for evidence closed on 17th January 2020, and Monkey World submitted a 25 page report on our experience with the pet trade, and our evidence against it.

Here are all the primates rescued by Monkey World from the UK pet trade between 1989 and 2019.

Hear Alison’s response to the debate

See the debate record

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Andrew Griffiths.)

RECAP- the problem!

85 species of monkey can be kept legally in the UK as pets without needing a license or register. We think the unregulated trade needs to STOP and the government need to act to protect pet monkeys. The government dismissed our petition calling for a change in the law in 2017. We are asking for the trade to be regulated so that monkeys do not keep falling into the hands of well-meaning but ill-informed buyers. These monkeys often end up back for sale within a few months, at young ages, with a range of social, physical and psychological problems. To date, Monkey World has spent almost a quarter of a million pounds mopping up the mess from the unregulated trade. THIS HAS TO STOP.

What we did

We have been asking our supporters to write to their local MPs and appropriate ministers raising concerns over the plight of the monkeys behind the net curtains. We have also campaigned online selling sites to change their policy, and not allow primates for sale on their sites.

You can find both letters here

Thank you for sending the responses from the government- but many of these letters contained incorrect information!

For more information & our #STAMPitout kit, please email communications@monkeyworld.org where you will be provided with all the information, graphics and videos needed to put forward your argument and spread the word.

Please keep sharing our posts on social media with the #STAMPitout. We will be posting the logo & stories of our pet trade victims regularly on social media, and need you to share them far and wide. If you have any celebrity friends, with large online followings, see if you can get them to tweet/ share it too.

Print off the logo and create a video asking the UK government to help us STAMP out the UK pet trade in primates. We’ll be posting videos from around the park too, so if you don’t fancy getting in front of the camera, share one of ours.

THANK YOU