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ESSENTIAL READ!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ BEFORE REQUESTING A CHIMPANZEE!!! I have so much to say on this topic however I realise my comment will probably fall on deaf ears but I need to say it regardless... 1. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are NOT monkeys! Monkeys (with a few exceptions) have tails! Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos and gibbons are APES! 2. The prospect of owning a primate appeals to us all. I will admit that in my childhood I dreamt of owning a primate and treating it like my child. But as I grew up, I developed a passion for wildlife and conservation and I knew that a primate (or any wild animal for that matter), does not make a good pet. There are countless stories of primates turning on their owners. Owners that believed these primates were their "babies" or "part of the family". A chimpanzee will never be your baby, or a part of your family. A chimpanzee is a wild animal. Not like a domesticated dog or cat that has been selectively bred for so long that they are so far removed from their wild relatives and require our attention to keep them healthy in this modern day. Chimpanzees however, are completely wild animals still. They may have been brought up in captivity but the species is a wild, dangerous animal. Yes, they are dangerous. Yes, a dog can be dangerous too, as can a horse or a rabbit! Pretty much every animal has some sort of instinct that can be dangerous in some way. Whether its a small nibble on your finger (rabbits have drawn blood on me many times), or the removal of a limb. This is what a chimpanzee is capable of doing, and very easily to a human. Any good chimpanzee care giver at any sanctuary will tell you that chimpanzees are unpredictable, unreliable and highly dangerous and should never engage in human contact. Infact, raising a chimpanzee from an infant to an adult and keeping it in captivity with regular human contact will make the chimpanzee see a human as one of its own kind and, not realising its own strength, do serious damage to a human. I find it hard to believe that in this day and age, people are still requesting chimpanzees as pets. Surely you know the perils they go through?! In the wilds of Africa, chimpanzee mothers are being shot from their trees, their screaming infants forcibly removed from their dying body and boxed up to be smuggled across the world to provide people like with pets for a few years, before you get bored with it or before it hurts someone. For this reason, as well as others such as deforestation, the numbers of chimpanzees in the wild are seriously declining and we are losing our closest relative. Chimpanzees live in troops and in order to get one infant, many other adults have to lose their lives. That's like someone breaking into your house, kidnapping your child and killing the entire family!!! I'm actually shaking at the prospect of humans believing chimpanzees to be good pets. I went to a primate rescue centre yesterday where they have many primates rescued from the pet trade and rehabilitated into natural groupings. Sanctuaries like this regularly go out to people's houses and find a primate in a sealed, dirty, iron bar cage and rescue the poor thing from this unacceptable life. This is what happens to primates kept in captivity. The novelty wears off, the primate becomes unmanageable, expensive, dangerous and they spend their life living within a metal cage. You can tell yourselves all you want that you won't let this happen... but I can guarantee that it will... Or you will have it euthanised before it gets to this point. To the last comment, I hope to "crush people's dreams" because I care about the life of that chimp, not the selfish needs of the human. I care for animals. I am studying my BSc in animal management, I spent the last 8 weeks volunteering in Indonesia and I intend on spending my life working in rescue and rehabilitation of primates. I hope to change peoples opinions on owning primates as pets for the primates sake. Most species of primate are endangered. Soon, many could be extinct. That means we will lose them off the planet. I have seen the perils of wild primates for myself. I will do all I can to stop primates becoming extinct... and one of things I have to do is educate people on primates and how they do not make good pets! I want to encourage people to think about their actions and encourage them to spend their money more wisely... perhaps on conserving the wild animal... and not on buying a pet primate!!! I could say much much more but I am trying my hardest not to. I am not going to insult, swear or curse at those of you wishing to own a chimpanzee... I just hope you have actually done the research on primates as pets and seen for yourself that the life of pet primates is never a good one! Please please please research this properly and I trust you make the right decision. Please don't have primates as pets!