Wild Futures Celebrates World Animal Day
4 October 2013
Primate welfare charity, Wild Futures, is today celebrating World Animal Day by encouraging supporters to adopt one of five of its monkeys which have the lowest number of adopters.
Monkeys such as Ivor, Kwango, Morwella, Sue and Chico are in the bottom five of those adopted and so this week the charity has been asking for supporters to “show them some love” and adopt them for just £3 a month. Each monkey has its own story and background which supporters can read about on its website and facebook page.
World Animal Day was started in 1931 at a convention of ecologists in Florence as a way of highlighting the plight of endangered species. October the 4th was selected World Animal Day as it is the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. Since then, it has become a day of remembering all animals and those that love and respect them.
Wild Futures works hard to protect primates at its Sanctuary in the UK and at projects around the world. Its biggest project is The Monkey Sanctuary, a rescue and rehabilitation centre for ex-pet monkeys.
Just last week, the charity hit out at pop star, Katy Perry, as her new music video, Roar, features a small menagerie of trained wild animals, including a capuchin monkey and a baboon.
Each time a monkey appears as an “actor” or as a celebrity pet in the mass media, Wild Futures notices a surge in enquiries about how to obtain a pet monkey or whether visitors can hold or touch a monkey at its Sanctuary.
Wild Futures campaigns heavily to end the primate pet trade due to the fact that it is a growing problem and the charity estimates that there are at least 5,000 privately owned primates in the UK.
The charity is urging individual and corporate supporters to help fund its rescue and campaign work by adopting a monkey this week at www.adoptamonkey.org.