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Pet primates for sale in the United States

Seaboch, Melissa S., Cahoon, Sydney N.·2021·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0256552PMC PMC8425555
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Abstract

Our research goal was to investigate the primate pet trade in the United States. While dogs and cats are the most common type of pet, there are an estimated 15,000 pet primates in the United States and the demand for exotic pets in general has been rising. Most research on pet primates occurs in habitat countries and little is known about these pets in the United States. We collected data from six exotic pet-trade websites twice a month for 12 months. We recorded the type of primate for sale, sex, age, location, and price. We used Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit tests to compare whether the number of male and female pet primates for sale and the number of different age categories of pet primates for sale differed from equality and Spearman Correlation to examine associations between price and size and price and supply. We recorded 551 pet primates for sale between June 2019-June 2020, with 69.1% platyrrhines, 21.6% strepsirrhines, and 8.9% catarrhines. Marmosets were sold most often (36.7%, N = 202) followed by lemurs (21.6%, N = 119), capuchins (11.3%, N = 62), and squirrel monkeys (10.5%, N = 58). Almost two-thirds of the pet primates for sale were male (Chi-Square = 16.056, df = 1, P = 0. 00006) and 78.7% were under one year old (Chi-Square = 440.264, df = 2, P<0.00001). The median price was $3,800 though price was highly variable, even for the same taxa. There are several potential drivers for the primate pet trade, including media influence, fashion/status, and profitable breeding though these are not mutually exclusive. Primates do not make good pets and even when captive-bred, pet primates impact the conservation of their wild counterparts. Advertisement campaigns focusing on disease transmission and legal consequences and a federal ban on pet primate ownership are two avenues to pursue to end the ownership of pet primates in the United States.

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Fig 1 a and b. Primates for sale in the United States. Proportion of pet primates for sale. Number of Primates for sale.
Fig 1 a and b. Primates for sale in the United States. Proportion of pet primates for sale. Number of Primates for sale.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig 2 Price of primates for sale in the United States. Red line represents sample average ($4,618.14).
Fig 2 Price of primates for sale in the United States. Red line represents sample average ($4,618.14).CC BY · PubMed Central

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Metadata

Authors
Seaboch, M. S., & Cahoon, S. N.
ORCID
Seaboch, Melissa S.
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2021-09-08
Volume
16
Issue
9
Pages
e0256552
ISSN
1932-6203
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0256552
PMC
PMC8425555
Cited by
19
References
3
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)

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Seaboch, M. S., & Cahoon, S. N. (2021). Pet primates for sale in the United States. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256552