Abandoned monkeys- what happens when social media 'pets' are no longer cute

A disturbing trend in the monkey social media boom has been the surge of popularity in abandonment videos. Videos of abandoned juveniles chasing after their owners (who are run away on foot, or ride away on motorcycles or in cars) or videos of the young monkeys cooing and calling for their owners for days have essentially become a sub-genre of monkey channel content. The animals are usually poached when they are infants, some even with umbilical cords attached. The poaching is often violent, and frequently involves the death of the mother, which the infant witnesses. Depending on age, that trauma can cause lifelong consequences. (I'll talk about poaching specifically in a later post) We know from Harlow's experiments in the 1950s/60s that infant monkeys undergo intense separation trauma and they form bonds of nurture and love to their mothers. We know that adult monkey mothers and caretakers will mourn the loss of their young for months, sometimes carrying the deceased body of their child for days or weeks in despair. So we know poaching causes immeasurable trauma. Then, the infants are 1) sold or kept as social media capital 2) sold in the exotic pet trade 3) sold to pharmaceutical research facilities 4) raised as forced labor (yes, really). For social media, the monkeys are kept in cages until brought out for the camera where they are fed (poorly), bathed (traumatically), dressed (ridiculously) then stuffed back in the cage. Some are tortured. Because they are...