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Who doesn't love monkeys? Look at these adorable chimps -- there's a whole family of them here.
The youngest being, Kendi. Why do we love them so much? I think they remind us of ourselves.
They're playful, and they love to eat many of things we eat like popsicles. These just
got fed ape-sicles, which they're given in the heat of the summer, and they love them.
So let's say you got this wild notion of keeping an ape or a monkey as a pet. You might wanna
rethink that. Let's talk to my friend Susan. So, Susan, this little Capuchin monkey is
really one that, I guess, people keep as a pet. It is -- this one of one of the most
commonly kept primates, and you see this monkey in a lot people's homes. But, unfortunately,
it also is a very destructive animal too. Oh, are they? And a lot people don't understand,
when they get these as pets, that they can be very, very destructive. And also very dangerous
-- they have very sharp teeth. They'll bite you? And very sharp claws -- absolutely, they
will. Yeah. And there even been a lot of cases that where people have had these as pets for
years, and then something has happened -- a sound, a smell, something has triggered that
wild instinct -- and causes them to attack their owner, to attack their owner's friends.
It can be a very, very dangerous situation. I'm gonna assume that this can live to great
age? They can -- these can live into their 30s, some into their 40s. They typically live
in their 20s, but it's a long, longterm commitment with these guys. Yeah. And they do require
a lot special care too. What do they eat? Well, they're actually herbivores, so they
eat fruit, they eat vegetables. Sure. And that's another thing too: A lot people that
get pet primates, think -- oh, I'll just feed them some hamburger, or I'll feed them scraps
from the table. Right, right. Not realizing. They don't want the leftovers from supper.
Right, that this is a very specialized diet that they have. And so having an environment
that's conducive for that is very important. This is a good size monkey -- you would also
need plenty of space, I would think. You would -- you absolutely would, which is why there
also not appropriate to keep as pets. Right. Because they need room to roam. They need
room to run, to play -- they need things to play with too. You can even look in their
exhibit here and see just how destructive they can be. Sure. They look like they're
cute and cuddly, but they can really tear something up. And so here, we've got one of
our keepers, Karen, who's feeding some of the treats to them. Ah, figs. And they are
excited about the figs. They are. Now this would be the monkey that would of inspired
the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. That's right, that's right. And that's something
else too that we also encourage against is apes' entertainment, because a lot of these
monkeys are taken from their mothers at a very young age, which causes a lot of psychological
trauma. Oh, how sad. And not every ape and not every monkey ends up being appropriate
for entertainment, and so the ones that end up not being appropriate then sometimes, unfortunately,
are put down. Oh, that's terrible. And so it's a very sad situation. So we're dealing
with an individual here, aren't we? Absolutely. They have their own individual personalities.
They're own individual likes and dislikes. And they're just like us -- they're very unique.
Susan, thank you for your time and for sharing some sound advice. Well, thank you for coming
to the Little Rock Zoo. Check in with us regularly, and subscribe to eHow Farm Raised.