Say No to Captive Primate Safety Act

Please start by signing the Petition we have created on Change.org

You can do so by following this link.  

Petition · Say No to Captive Primate Safety Act - United States · Change.org 

To: Our Senators and Congressmen
From: Your Constituents
Re: Proposed legislation: The Captive Primate Safety Act
As your constituents, dedicated advocates for ecological conservation, and pet owners, we implore you to stop the proposed changes to the Lacey Acts with regards to the addition of non-human primates as presented in the Captive Primate Safey Act.  We would like to take a moment to address the basic elements of Congressman Blumenauer’s introduction (in bold and italics) of the Captive Primate Safety Act of 2024.

The private ownership of primates poses significant public health and animal welfare issues.
Primates are not pets: they are highly intelligent and social animals whose needs cannot be met when they are inappropriately confined…primates are easily obtained on the Internet and through out-of-state dealers and auctions.
Non-human primates (hereafter referred to as NHP’s) are indeed very intelligent. They are not a pet that should be purchased on a whim. Education regarding their care, prior to purchasing an NHP, is incredibly important. NHP owners spend a lot of time telling people the reality of NHP ownership. Most will actually tell you it is not for everyone, and that if you do not have to adjust your lifestyle to accommodate the needs of your primate, you are not doing it right. Their enrichment and diet needs are complex, but they can be and usually are met in private ownership. The “cute” and “funny” videos people see and laugh at on TikTok and other social media outlets are not indicative of how most NHP owners care for and treat them. Most treat them as a family member - looking out for their best interests, feeding them the proper diet, ensuring their living quarters are rich with environmental stimuli, and keeping them safe. The average primate owner is angered by what they see in these videos and would like nothing more than for those people to have to surrender their monkey to a responsible owner or sanctuary. Most NHP owners would love for primates to not be available through auctions since it invites spontaneous, uneducated ownership. We are heartbroken and angered by the ill-treatment of primates.

Primates are not domesticated, no. It takes thousands of years to truly domesticate animals. We have not yet been granted close to that amount of time of educated/progressive ownership. All animals, and especially human primates, have the potential to attack, maim and kill and will never lose that instinct.

The best breeders, licensed by the USDA, educate prospective owners on the reality of primate ownership, best practices, and whether it is legal for the buyer to purchase and own them. The primate community itself is angered when we learn of a breeder telling someone that monkeys make great family pets or they are easy to care for, just like a dog or cat. This is simply not true. Again, education is a must.

Beyond the immediate health risk of an attack, these animals also often carry dangerous viruses that can be transferred to humans such as COVID–19 and Herpes B. 

Though it is true primates can carry dangerous viruses that can be transferred to humans such as COVID–19 and Herpes B.  Many diseases - ebola, Marburg, monkeypox, salmonella, campylobactera, and rabies will all be present and transmittable in the United States irregardless of the presence of non-human primates and a majority of those being transmitted by humans.

Domestically bred and privately owned non-human primates (NHPs) are more likely to catch human illnesses than they are to transmit an illness to humans. COVID-19, as most people know, was a
manufactured illness - engineered by humans. Furthermore, the only known cases of primates contracting COVID-19 were transmitted from humans to primates. Throughout the private primate world, owners frequently discussed the best ways to get through their fight with COVID and protect their primates from catching it, with very few NHP's ever having contracted the virus.

With regards to Herpes B or monkey B virus, macaques are the primary source of transmission of the Herpes B virus. In point of fact, according to the CDC, there have been fifty documented cases of the transmission of Herpes B from macaques to humans since they began keeping records in the 1930s. That's almost a century, with only fifty cases. This virus was first discovered in 1932.  B virus (Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1, herpesviridae), an alphaherpesvirus endemic in macaque monkeys, has the unique distinction of being the only one of nearly 35 identified non-human primate herpesviruses that is highly pathogenic in humans.  It is estimated that upwards of 72% of macaques are infected with the Herpes-B virus.  Untreated B virus infections in humans result in an extremely high mortality rate (∼80%).  80% of the documented cases survived with the advent of antiviral therapies in contrast to 80% mortality reported in untreated patients.  

Tuberculosis, or TB, is a bidirectional disease and will present a risk regardless of the presence of non-human primates. This means that the disease is just as likely to be transmitted from humans to humans,  humans to non-human primates as vice versa. Some states that allow non-human primates require TB tests to be conducted on the primates. This is an exceptional step for detection, as well an active measures to fend off transmission. The same cannot be said of humans, as only hospitals require their employees to have a TB test performed.

In further discussion of these diseases, one must also understand that a majority of the reported injuries and transmission of illnesses within the United States are occurring in a laboratory setting; not, as one might suspect, coming from the home, or even public setting. To be brought into further consideration, one must remember most of the research requires frequent tissue sampling and purposeful injections of transmittable viruses and diseases, and/or blood draws. In the natural course of events with privately owned NHPs, individual, or even small members of a home troop would see far less of incidences or introduction of viral threats and/or diseases. In point of fact, in 2021, more than 70,000 NHPs were being used in research. Since 2013, with the exception of 2023, more than 20,000 primates have been imported each year, primarily for research.

Most legally bred and purchased primates are healthy and carry very little risk to humans from zoonotic illnesses. Even with the Herpes B virus carried by many macaques is blown out of proportion. 

The Captive Primate Safety Act supplements the more than 30 state laws that already outlaw the private ownership of primates.

There are approximately 23 states that disagree with the premise of banning private ownership of NHPs. Many of these bans were enacted following the tragic accident with the chimpanzee mentioned in the introduction of the Captive Primate Safety Act 2024 by Mr. Blumenauer.  That tragic accident could have been avoided by proper care of the chimpanzee by its owner, and enforcement of the laws in place the previous times there were issues with this primate.  The subsequent bans by many states were, quite frankly, media and animal rights infused fear legislation.
 

In conclusion:
None of us will dispute the incredible importance of stopping the illegal trade in wildlife, in general, and primates in particular. Bringing in primates illegally endangers all of us, including the captive NHPs born and bred in captivity. Without the proper protocols for quarantining and vetting, they bring in strange and harmful parasites and illnesses that affect humans and other animals alike. We can control this danger far better with the protocols and regulations already put into place and being better enforced, and better education of owners.

All dogs are not banned because of an extreme case of an attack (dogs have mauled humans), all horses and cows are not banned after an extreme case of injury (after being trampled or otherwise attacked and severely injured). The number of incidents with agricultural and domestic pets FAR outweigh the incidents involving NHP's.
So, inciting fear of legally obtained non-human primates transmitting illnesses to the human population or mauling humans is just propaganda and fearmongering. One could even go so far as to say it is a form of domestic terrorism, and enacting legislation on such lies is impinging upon our rights.

We, the undersigned, your constituents strongly urge you to say no to the Captive Primate Safety Act of 2024.