The following CNN animal news video comes from CTV. It is an update to the story of that rhesus monkey that was found wondering around in a winter coat at a Toronto, Canada IKEA store. This video was added to the CNN website on December 11, 2012.
Owner Yasmin Nakhuda would like to have the monkey, who is named Darwin, back home with her. But the primate, who was wearing a fake shearling coat when he sauntered around IKEA, was confiscated by the local authorities. As it turns out, it is not legal to keep a monkey as a pet in Toronto.
Nakhuda obviously doesn’t agree with the law. I mean, that’s no surprise since she already violated the law in the first place. Her point that an animal should be able to decide where it wants to live is silly but doesn’t really support her position that much, anyway. How do we really know where a rhesus monkey wants to live? At the present time, it would probably want to stay with Nakhuda since it is used to those surroundings. But that would be true of even a small child living in a crack house. There is no magic used to tell the best place for an animal to live. Even in child custody cases, the desire of the children as to where to stay is only one factor in the decision-making process. Yasmin is proposing an untestable solution that is not going to work in a society that actually uses logic to make decisions.
It may be that monkeys below a certain size should be able to be kept as pets. But it is well known that primates can be very aggressive as they get older. Perhaps an exception for rhesus monkeys or certain other types is in order. But Nakhuda’s argument is not the way to do it.