Assanee and Wasan, two primate brothers, were recently turned over to the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. It’s the best possible ending to their years of misery up until this point.
Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
WFFT explains that a Thailand hotel paid 8000 THB ($230 USD) for each Northern pigtail macaque when they were just babies, leading most to believe the siblings were torn from their forest home after likely witnessing their mother’s murder (much like this rhesus macaque we reported on in July). While most of these orphans are sold to be kept as as pets or used in tourist attractions, circus acts or animal testing, these macaques were bought with another purpose in mind.
Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
The hotel chained the monkeys to their fifth-floor roof in an attempt to scare or keep other small macaques away from the building. Heavy iron bands were placed around their necks while they were young, and the bands were not expanded or replaced to allow for growth.
WFFT made this comparison in a Facebook post: “Such barbaric tools are used to prevent the enslaved macaques from escaping. These rigid iron neck restraints are comparable to those used on human slaves during the abhorrent Transatlantic Slave Trade.”
When the monkeys were rescued, the bands were invisible because they had embedded into the animals’ skin and the flesh literally grew around the shackles.
Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand
Forced to be live scarecrows for years, the monkeys’ enslavement finally came to an end last month when the hotel decided they no longer wanted the two brothers. Luckily, the hotel called WFFT to “dispose” of them.
There is every hope that Assanee and Wasan (named after Thai Pop singers) will at some point be released back into the wild. If this is not possible, they will always have a home at the WWFT rescue. If you would like to donate on their behalf, please go to: http://www.wfft.org/donate/
