Should monkeys be kept as pets? Watch this breathtaking capuchin monkey rescue.

And this is known as the monkey house of Des Plaines. I guess the police department, one detective was here one time, and he told me that that's a running joke. And when they have the new recruits, they tell them to go find the monkey house of Des Plaines. I've been here 27 years. When it was clear glass, we used to have teenagers, you know, with a mask and, you know, all stupid stuff. I actually had one guy come up on the grass, and Annie, she doesn't do it that much anymore. She's a little bit older, but when you would go on the grass, she would actually whack the window with her tail, you know. The one guy had a banana, and he's doing the dancing banana like they're gonna follow the banana. Yeah, just the stupidity of some people. They're great and everything, you know, and they have a lot of character to them, but it's a lot of work, a lot of responsibility. You know, just their care with the exotic pet laws that they passed, a lot of states do, and Illinois passed it in 2011. You know, a lot of bucks don't see them, and that's another factor of why I'm placing them at the sanctuaries for their health and well-being, because I just don't want that situation, you know, to arise where I'm scrambling to get them medical care, so. Is that there exists a large network of individuals who exist solely to rescue and house wild exotic animals because of overwhelming necessity they are forced to fill? For many reasons, animals are transitioning more and more from their home in the wild into people's homes. This attraction and unpredictability inherent in nature, it is no wonder that things can go sideways. This is Furthest from the Wild. My name is Piri Bagnall, and I am the founder and executive director of Chimpa. Never in a million years did I think I would have over 300 monkeys all around me. I have a boyfriend who decided he wanted to buy a pet monkey. I had never heard of such a thing, and I talked him out of it for about a year. Ended up, he found a breeder in Las Vegas who was breeding monkeys and said, we've got to go and see this baby monkey. I really, I really want to go see. And out comes standard poodle with a little baby monkey attached to the dog. Yeah, cutest thing you've ever seen. And the boyfriend, ex-boyfriend now, said, how old is she? And the breeder said, she was born on December 18th. And he said, oh my gosh, this is an omen. That's my birthday. So he decided this was an omen. He had to get this monkey, and there wasn't much I could say about this. And she was adorable. I mean, monkeys are so cute. I know the allure. I can see how people just want to take care of these tiny little creatures. So I was an interior designer decorating his new home as Samantha was undecorating. So the novelty wore off very quickly, and he wanted to sell Samantha. Samantha thought I was her mother. She became disattached from the dog. We didn't take the dog with us. And she attached herself physically to my body. She literally slept with me. She showered with me. First thing I taught her to do was to trade arms so I could get dressed. When I'd go on a job, I'd say, hide, Sammy, hide. She'd dump down my shirt because some places you couldn't go with the monkey on your back. So long story short, I covered the boyfriend, kept the monkey, and here we are 300 monkeys later because I started talking to people and going on the news, and talking about how wrong this was to have a pet monkey. And people started saying, you're right. And they'd come to my door. Here's my pet monkey. You were right. They don't make good pets. Here you go. So that's how it kind of started. Big guy. We got Annie at six months old from a breeder in Missouri. And then we got Ben at two weeks old from a breeder in Florida. We acquired two other black and white capuchins, one that we, I guess you can say, gave away to another primate owner, and then one that just passed away about four years ago. And then we've had squirrel monkeys. They were some from private zoos and research facilities. There was a magazine, Animal Finders Guide, and you can find anything in there. And that's how we found some of them, or my wife found them. We used to let them run around here for a couple hours each night before we put them to bed. Annie's little thing when she would play is she would start from one side of the couch and run across and then jump on the window curtain and swing back and forth. Ben's thing, he would do it all night long. And he would climb up the railing and then jump across to the table that was against the wall. And, I mean, just constantly, all night long. Boom, boom, boom. And then one time we did this, he jumped high enough to hit the ceiling fan. The blades hit him three times and knocked him to the floor. And we looked back, and there he is, rubbing his head. But not more than 10 minutes later, back up on the railing, but just lower on the railing, jumping across. If I knew what I know now, I wouldn't have done it, just for the simple fact that I've done the best that I could with them in the environment that my wife and I set up for them and then me solely taking over the care of them. But it isn't necessarily fair to them. I mean, they're healthy for the most part. I'm sure there are issues with maybe their food, their diet, their environment that some people or experts wouldn't necessarily agree with. But for what they know and what they've been through, they seem to be fine in their situation. But is it fair to them? I wouldn't necessarily say yes. I read Jane Goodall's books and found out that primates need to be with other primates, just like people do and chimps do. And I figured monkeys needed to be with other monkeys. So I put one misguided foot in front of the other and went right back to the breeder and said, I need a friend for Samantha. He said, I just happen to have her sister here. So I said, oh great, I'll take the sister. And can I help out around here? You know, in lieu of some payment or to help out, I can come and help you out cleaning and learn more about monkeys. He said, sure. So I got Charlotte, named her Charlotte, and said Samantha and Charlotte are both still here and was helping the breeder out When he asked if I wanted to help him pull a monkey, and my girlfriend and I were both there, and she had a monkey also, we went to go help him do it. We didn't understand what that meant. And what he did was put a net over mama and baby and reach in with a gloved hand and pry the baby up. And the baby was screaming and the mother was screaming. Watching it was just this horrible separation and thievery. It was like, oh my God, oh my God, this is crazy, this isn't right, this is wrong. The breeder said, I'm going to be selling them all at an animal auction. I thought, oh my gosh, you're just going to sell them all to the highest bidder? Now these are monkeys I've gotten to know now. I've been over there helping out in cleaning and feeding. You can't do that. How much for everybody? I just gave him my charge card and bought everybody. I'm sure there's a lot more research that I could have done to prevent a lot of my ignorance to the situation, but it seems to be working. I get two days out of a set of cans, one for today and then one for on the road. I usually do bologna, I like bologna. I do chicken nuggets too. And like I said, I don't know if it's necessarily correct, but that's what I've been doing. Ben and Annie have been losing quite a bit of hair recently. Hair loss is a condition commonly found in monkeys in captivity. It's one of several neurotic conditions that affect them, along with weight loss and self-harming behaviors. I thought it could be stress-related, not enough toys, not enough stimulation or something, because of the change of the seasons and everything. And she said, no, it could be a lack of blood flow. It could be just dying. Those are all issues that I don't know about. I don't necessarily, you know... Ben! I wouldn't be fair to them to keep them any longer. Ben! What? They might be able to have a better life where they're going to go, and I'm looking forward to that. Banana plants and bamboo and all kinds of things. Things that they like to anoint with, like mint. They love to rub all over themselves. And they eat a lot of the ground cover, but any time there are weeds, we pull them out. And they like the flowers. They eat the little flowers and stuff. And they get to dig for worms and catch bugs and all that stuff. We're a vegan organization, so we don't feed them any animals, but what they catch, they catch. People ask me, you know, why did you choose monkeys? I say, well, I didn't really choose monkeys. They chose me. This wasn't in my plan. You know, I didn't sit down one day and say, what do I want to do? I want to be really, really poor and work really, really hard. Oh, I know! I'll start a primary school. So, you do what's in front of you. When you see something like that that I saw, that changed my life. You don't unsee something like that. And you feel like you have to right these wrongs and let people know. Because I honestly believe that if people knew that these babies were stolen from their mothers as early as three days old, not even the benefit of mother's milk, they weren't raised by their own species, they didn't have peer play with other monkeys, so they could stop most people from buying pet monkeys. The allure of holding baby monkeys often wears off as they reach maturity, at which point they can be very difficult to handle. After 27 years, Matt knows this very well. This is the little bean. What's up, buddy? What are these people with the lights on? Yeah, I think he's a little afraid. Go in. Go on, come on. Come on. You can do the same thing with Annie, but just for safety reasons, open the door. She can be aggressive. She has her teeth. You can see her canines' gums were a lot bigger. That's why you had to move. There she is. She's a little sweaty. You okay? You want to go back in there? Yeah. Okay, okay. All right. Out, out, out. Come on. Out, out, out. Stop. Come on. I knew I should have got gloves. See, the majority of the time, it's the human reaction to pull away, and you end up tearing your ---- apart. Even with the squirrel monkeys. They have real small razor teeth. When they bite you and you pull away, you end up tearing the piss out of your hands. Here at Jungle Friends, we've always had a waiting list. I don't think we've ever not had a list of monkeys waiting to come to Jungle Friends, whether they were privately owned in entertainment or in laboratories. We still have quite a waiting list. On our waiting list were two monkeys named Annie and Ben. We weren't sure how we were going to be able to get them here. The guardians of Annie and Ben actually contacted Primate Rescue Center first. April Truitt, who is one of my mentors, she founded Primate Rescue Center and is amazing. She helped him out, heard the story, wanted the monkeys to come to Jungle Friends, so she offered to pay for the habitat. So they were in. The monkeys who are confiscated or come here without anyone, it's a lot more difficult for them to settle in because they don't know what happened to them. They don't know where their family is, but they knew for the last 20 years they were raised in a house and treated a certain way, and then all of a sudden they're somewhere else and they don't understand. For a lot of the monkeys, they were part of the family and then kind of gradually got moved away from the family. As they got more aggressive, moved to the garage, moved to the basement, and not really a part of the family anymore. So they get here and it's like, wow, now we have this huge, larger life. But when they're in a family situation where they had a loving relationship and a relationship with the family, it's better if the family comes with them. Matt and his brother Jay start their 17-hour drive down to Florida. Two hours in, they stop at a baboon sanctuary in Indiana. Carey has arranged for them to pick up some supplies. Hello. Hey, how you doing? Good, I'm Scott. I'm Jay. I'm Matt's brother. Nice to meet you. Hey, Scott, how are you? How are you, Matt? Yeah, I'm good, how are you? Good, good, nice to meet you. Yeah. So would you like some stuff for your monkeys? Do you need anything or you got food for them or you want some treats for them? I can have one of our care staff put something together. Yeah, sure, that would be great. I have a little bit of food, but just basically like certain things, strawberries or fruit over vegetables. More fruit over vegetables. Anybody likes sweet fruit? Do you want to give them something? Scott, from Peaceable Primates Sanctuary, gives Matt and Jay a brief tour. Peaceable Primates was created to give homes specifically to baboons. All were either used in medical research, the entertainment industry, or living in private homes. Cary's supplies include some cargo nets that are used in the habitat for enrichment and some much-needed work gloves for the staff. Well, safe journey. Yeah. Put your seatbelt on. Monkey did. Cary and our staff are adding the last-minute touches to Ben and Annie's new retirement home. So this is where we're going to release them in this indoor area. They had neighbors. We locked the neighbors out. You can see Anna Claire is wondering why she's locked out of her area. But they're out there, and they've got a big habitat out there, and they don't really need this. We use this for when it's really cold. They go inside. But when monkeys come from, like, Chicago, where it's really cold and have never been used to being outside where it's too cold or too hot, we start them out in here. So we're going to release Annie and Ben right inside here. We've got places where they can eat in here, too. We've got water in here. And then we have to show them how to navigate the runway to get out of here and get all the way to their habitat. So that's the tricky part. Well, we just talked to Cary, and she called and asked if we were going to admit us if they may confiscate the monkeys, so we decided we should go through Alabama. That's what we're doing, rerouting. Having extended the route, Matt and Jay decide to stay the night in Alabama and arrive early the next morning. Hello, I'm Cary. I'm Jay. Jay, nice to meet you. Jay. There's Matt. Matt. Hi, Cary. Finally, nice to meet you. Thank you. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm glad you made it safe and sound. Yes. So let me show you what we're going to do first so you can tell me if we need anything different. We're just going to have you come in here so that they can be inside, and then you're going to bait them out the runway that goes like this and around over to that habitat. So will they follow you? Do you need a special treat to get them out? I have some treats still. Okay. So, yeah. If we release them out there, I'm afraid they won't figure out how to get in. Right. It's going to be 55 tonight. Okay. It's going to be cooler. All right. We have a heat lamp in here. We also have a heat lamp out there, and we put treats where the heat lamp is. Oh, okay. So I'm thinking better to release them in here and then try to show them how to get to the outdoor. Okay. Yes? Yeah. The sanctuary and all the staff carrying everybody were there. They were able to help me get them acclimated to their new indoor environment. Yeah. Hi, you guys. This is Annie. Hi, Annie. How do they feel about dogs? I have dogs. Oh, okay. Yeah, no. I kept them apart from them, but, no, they're okay with dogs. Okay. Hi, Annie. That's Annie. Potter's a nice dog. Potter is the protector of the monkeys. When new monkeys come, he thinks that he has to protect them against everyone, and sometimes maybe even you. And then this is Ben. Ben? Okay. Do you want me to take one? Sure. After 27 years, Ben and Annie will be released into a habitat as close to the wild as they have ever been. How do you feel, Matt? Overwhelmed, actually. I mean, seeing this type of environment, very excited for them. I mean, I did have, you know, not too much worry because I was driving, but as we got closer, a little anticipation of what was going to come about, but now this is beautiful, and thank you very much. Yeah, if you want to hold that. They actually took to it very surprised. They didn't try to go back into their cages or anything like that. They were exploring it. They had it set up really nice. What do you think? Look at all this. You know this, Ben. I've had a great day, though. Yeah. Who wants a grape? Oh, of course you do. She loves grapes. Annie just kept eating from the moment she found out where the food was. She has been eating. Matt thinks that she's gained weight already. I guess the food is acceptable. And then this is Gatorade if you need some electrolytes. Well, you want to see if you can get them to go through the runway? Nanny. Do you want a little step stool so she can see you? We've got one right here. Okay. Matt tries to entice Ben and Annie to check out the new open-air habitat, but naturally they are a bit cautious. Come on, guys. Come here, Nanny. Bean. Wish I could have thought of something like this. To have the land would be great. I mean, this is how it should be. Much better of a life enhancement environment than what I provided. I like the interaction that they'll have. I mean, their outdoor area is huge. Just a little at loss of words and, you know, astonishment. But very good. Very, very pleased. Matt and Jay unload the van and call it a night. Maybe it'll happen. Early the next morning, Matt tries once again to get Ben and Annie to enter the outdoor habitat. Hi, Nanny. Matt was calling and calling at the opening to try to get them to come out, and they didn't know, really, they came out. The runways are made out of horse camels, so it's wire, and I don't think they were used to walking on that. So we put blankets all the way along the runway and tied them to the runway. Ben brings new discovery while Annie watches from a safe location. Ben was the first one to go into the outside enclosure. Annie was a little more apprehensive. It's competitive, guys. This is what she knows. Enclosed area. Annie eventually gains some courage and reunites with Ben. Of course, she gets her close-up. Annie makes sure we get her good side. Welcome to Jungle Friends. I've talked to my brother and my mother and, you know, always had the assumption that, you know, if they don't know it, they're never going to miss it. But it's not that. This is much, much better for them. The wild would have been much, much better, but this was a long time coming. Yeah. And when he got the monkey, I thought it was a bad idea. But he wanted it, and he took care of him, and he actually, I mean, if you think about it, how many years were they with him, 27 years? Mm-hmm. That's longer than most parents raise their children. If you think about that, this is something that you don't normally see, you know? The capuchins seem to be the species most people are attracted to, and I think that is because they are seen a lot on television, and they have these horrible monkey rodeos now that they're doing where they're strapping, chaining monkeys down to the backs of dogs and having them herd sheep and run around, run a race, and it's just, it's a horrific practice. So people see that, and they see them on the movies or on television or on ads, and then they want a monkey. And then they go online, and you put in pet monkey, and there are all these cute little babies with bottles, and they want a baby to take care of. It's especially important for monkeys to have enrichment, so Matt and Jay volunteer some time to help rehabilitate a habitat. When completed, Jungle Friends will bring current residents in and give them a new area to explore. Cary will introduce a lucky monkey to its new space later today. Tonight's our last night. We have some paperwork with Cary, and then we did drive down here, so we take a nice, easy ride home, unless he wants to get home to see his wife a lot quicker. So, you know, I know I'm going to try to bring some of what I've seen and felt here today to other people. There are some people that I work with that knew that I have monkeys, but very few of them knew that I was doing this today or this week. And then on my part, you know, I get to go home and not have them there and then have to deal with their room, you know, disassemble it. And then I have some stuff that I didn't necessarily bring down. So I'll, you know, pack all that up and find other things and, you know, donate that also. It'll be fun. I'll help you. Yeah. So we're there now. You go in that room, you look at it and say, wow, I'm glad it's there. Oh, yeah, no, it'll be hard, yeah. And, I mean, you know, I mean, that's only my own selfishness per se, you know, or for the most part, you know, because he is right. I mean, they are going to be, they are in a better place, and I know that they're in a better place. But I'm going to miss them. On Matt's final day, he sits down with Carrie to fill out some paperwork and make Ben and Annie's retirement official. Matt Anderson, initial contact November 30, 2016. So you got in pretty, relatively quickly. Oh, yeah, I know. Most people are waiting for years. Yeah. This whole process did go very fast, thanks to you and April. And when you told me how much matching funds, and I was, you know, I guess blessed that I didn't have to have any of those funds because it would have taken me a long time to come up with that kind of money for them. So I do thank you for that. Yeah. I'll just send him whatever you got. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no. Let's go back and keep fixing our golf cart and building our habitat. Yeah. In case Ben and Annie feel a little homesick, Matt leaves behind the plaque he had inscribed with their names. How you doing, sweetie? Now it's time for Matt to say goodbye. Matt and Jay, Ben and Annie's humans, we would like to say thank you for your dedication and your hospitality and giving us all the chores to do. They were fun and enjoyable. And hopefully we will see you through the monkey day. Thank you very much. Monkey day? Yeah, why not? Matt, thank you, Jay, for everything you've helped with, and we're going to take excellent care of you both. We love them already. Come back. I looked back and I had pictures of them back when they first arrived. We weren't sure what was going on, if they were picking their hair out, plucking their own hair, or if they just needed sunshine and fresh air or a better diet. Not sure. Now a year later, you can't hardly recognize them. They're so fluffy and full, and their hair grew back. And this happens a lot in jungle friends. Monkeys coming from pet situations, laboratory research, they come and they don't have fur like they're supposed to have. And most of them come from living always inside. They've just blossomed. They're doing monkey things, they're foraging, they're checking out their new habitats. They're kept pretty active, and that might be a lot of it too. And Matt is always checking on the monkeys, which is not typical because for a lot of, I hate to even call them pet monkeys, but privately owned primates, it's usually out of sight, out of mind. So it's nice and refreshing to have someone who really does care about these monkeys. Knowing what's best for the animal versus what's best for us is a line that has been undeniably crossed. We not only exploit the ancestral genetics we have in common to perform experimental research, but we also succumb to more primal impulses of desire and gain. We desire the attention we receive from our pets, and in some cases, the attention we receive from others. And because we do so, the drive to gain as a captor or breeder exists to profit from the life of a living being. Either way, there are unintended consequences rooted in the decisions we make, even if they are not immediately apparent. Decisions like these can and must be taken with the deliberate consideration. For these two capuchins, the decision to give them a better home was 27 years in the making.