Bustin' Out Dead Or Alive!

Black market for monkeys turns zoos into crime zones
By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Thieves who broke into the Drusillas Park Zoo on England's southeast coast last week weren't monkeying around.

They went straight for rare species of small monkeys and stole five animals: a pair of silvery marmosets and their 2-month-old baby, and a pair of Geoffrey marmosets.

"To break into a monkey house in the dead of night is dangerous and requires skill," says John Haywood, coordinator of the National Theft Register for Exotic Animals in the United Kingdom. "This is a specialist form of criminality and well-organized."

The break-in early June 18 was the most recent in a string of thefts of monkeys from British zoos and the latest in an alarmingly high number of thefts of exotic and even endangered animal species from zoos in Europe. Behind the thefts, Haywood says, is black-market demand from private collectors around the globe.

"It seems that we live in a designer world," Haywood says. "Anything that is increasingly rare in the wild is very sought-after."

Haywood, who works with zoos and police to combat theft and illegal trafficking in animals, says small monkeys were stolen in recent weeks from two other zoos in England. In the past five years, he estimates, more than 50 have been stolen. The British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums lists 75 members — from bird and animal parks to public zoos.

Monkeys aren't the only target of thieves. In December, burglars stole Toga, a baby South African Jackass penguin, from a zoo on the Isle of Wight off England's southern coast. The film March of the Penguins was showing in theaters at the time.

Martign Los, who monitors zoo thefts for the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria in Amsterdam, says about 600 animals were stolen from about 80 of the association's zoos in Europe from 2000 to 2004. Monkeys, birds and reptiles — some of them endangered — are among the most popular targets. "It's quite a big problem," Los says. "Only a small amount is ever found again."

Karen Eggert, spokeswoman at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, says no primate thefts were reported in the USA last year. She notes that American zoos are not obligated to report thefts.

Haywood suspects that because the monkeys stolen last week included pairs, they are headed to black-market breeders who will try to deal their offspring to private collectors.

He won't say how much the monkeys could be sold for. He fears putting a price on the animals would only spur more thefts. Claire Peters, a spokeswoman for the Drusillas Zoo, will say only that they are priceless.

While Haywood won't put a dollar amount on the animals, he notes that the black market is lucrative enough to break into a zoo at night and "risk getting a nasty bite."