Wild Animal Ban Bill – A Review and the Work Ahead
June 2, 2009
Dear Rep. Roy:
After speaking with Connecticut’s Attorney General months ago, I had such hope that the legislature would avert another tragedy by passing HB 6552 to ban the possession of potentially dangerous animals.
It’s most discouraging that the bill was weighed down with distracting amendments not germane to keeping primates and other wild animals as pets. Friends of Animals encouraged all legislators to support the bill as written—not to weaken the measure by allowing exemptions for keeping smaller primates.
Attorney General Blumenthal’s efforts to stop undomesticated animals from being possessed as pets acknowledged these animals’ interests in flourishing in their natural settings. Making exemptions for smaller primates and keeping them as pets sabotaged the bill, was unfair to the animals, and made it dangerous for humans.
Attorney General Blumenthal advanced the sensible idea that any animals being held as pets should be allowed to live the rest of their lives in sanctuaries with surroundings that more closely resemble their natural habitat and introduced carefully to members of their own species. That should have been everyone’s focus.
Friends of Animals offered our services to the DEP to locate a sanctuary when monkeys, prosimians, apes and other animals held as pets in Connecticut are confiscated or turned into the agency for placement. We manage a primate sanctuary in San Antonio. Forty percent of the 450 animals who are residents of this primate sanctuary were released from the pet trade, as wild animals bite or otherwise revolt against their captivity, and are eventually abandoned.
Connecticut must lead the way in stopping the custom of breeding and trading in primates for human use and entertainment. Please count on our support for this pressing measure when the Connecticut legislature resumes in December, and kindly work with Friends of Animals to keep distracting, competing interests from subverting a vitally important, intelligent bill.
Sincerely yours,
Priscilla Feral, President
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