Cute or Cruel? The Cost of Gibbon Trafficking and the Exotic Pet Trade

 




 Image by Programme HURO via Wikimedia Commons

    With a growing demand for exotic pets in India as well the recent social media boom, gibbons have become a hot commodity in the illegal wildlife trade. Despite legislation such as the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and CITES, gibbon trafficking is still bringing these primates into India from Southeast Asia. Gibbon trafficking is also only exacerbated by the growing wealth across Asia and the rise in popularity of Tiktok, with exotic pets becoming more affordable to the wealthy and Tiktok trends expanding the market.


    To obtain an infant, traffickers often kill the mother, causing severe disruption to the gibbon’s complex social structures. Even if the young gibbons survive, their journey is fraught with harm— drugged and stuffed into suitcases without food or water. Many die before reaching their destination and those that are rescued are kept in captivity.


"A siamang gibbon seized in Chennai, India in August 2024, along with turtles and pythons. It was being carried in the baggage of a passenger travelling from Bangkok" - Image courtesy of PIB India/Press release.

    From a conservationist perspective, repatriation needs to be a priority moving forward in international laws governing trafficked wild animals, focusing on rehabilitating seized gibbons and returning them to their countries of origin. Additionally, wildlife and border control authorities need to enforce existing laws more strictly and consumers should do more research on the consequences of owning exotic pets.


    Exotic pet trade is different from other primate conservation issues because it is entirely fueled by an unnecessary human demand for rare or cute animals. Unlike bushmeat hunting, which is sometimes used as a protein source or habitat loss in the neotropics due to resource exploitation, the exotic animal trade is not out of any kind of necessity or a byproduct of a greater conservation issue. Rather, it is predominantly a status of wealth and novelty for humans, a mark of a larger consumerist movement that treats animals as commodities rather than valuable parts of the ecosystem that deserve to exist in the wild.


Source:https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/increase-in-gibbon-trafficking-into-india-has-conservationists-worried/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fortress Conservation and Displament of Indigenous People in Congol

Image
James Peng Professor Joseph Feldblum Fortress Conservation and the Displacement of Indigenous People The eastern lowland gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri) also known as Grauer's gorillas are the largest living primates. For decades, the relationship between the indigenous Batwa people and the critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas in DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park has been debated. A recent study published in the journal World Development showed that armed conflicts and civil unrest in the region rather than the activities of the indigenous Batwa people have negatively impacted the population of the gorillas in the park.  Gorillas are a tourist attraction at the  Kahuzi-Biega  National Park In the 1970s, 6,000 Batwa people were forcibly evicted from the park as part of a government-led conservation plan. This left many impoverished, marginalized, and even forced to live in roadside squatter camps. This action has been justified under the logic of fortress conser...
Read more

Davinder Josephson Blog 1 - Gorilla Doctors

Image
Davinder Josephson Dr. Feldblum Primate Conservation 13 February 2025 Gorilla Doctors Image by Guerrero De la Luz via Pexels A recent study published by the Public Library of Science revealed incredible self-medicating behavior within gorilla populations in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park, Gabon. For decades, scientists have hypothesized why non-human primates are able to resist, endure, and carry dangerous viruses that would kill humans, such as yellow fever and monkey pox, without becoming severely ill. Many speculate that primates have naturally heighted immune systems that prevent such diseases from becoming deadly, while others suggest that long-term exposure to these viruses has protected primate populations.  The study, conducted by 13 primate researchers, worked to collaborate with the local indigenous community in Gabon, the Vingu people, in order to determine similarities in medicinal plant consumption between local gorilla and human populations. The scientists tested the ...
Read more

Charlie Cooper Blog 1 - Dancing gibbons

Image
 Charlie Cooper 2/10/25 Gibbons: Dance to Advance Already, Gibbons are known for their morning singing frenzies and crazy tree swinging uproars. Now, a 2024 study from Camille Coye and others highlights a new form of communication that has been observed in gibbons. Although primarily observed in captivity, gibbons perform a "robot" like dance move that provides some intel into their communication methods. The dance has been exclusively observed in sexually mature female gibbons, indicating it's role in sexual selection (hence the title "Dance to Advance").  While it is easy to feel quite distant from the world of gibbons, they are not so different from ourselves. The gibbons performing this dance are noted to be directing it at another individual, sometimes even at humans. They often check to see if anybody is watching their performance, indicating the true intention of their actions. While this seems so incredibly human-like, the study emphasizes that human dan...
Read more