A weeks-old green monkey advertised for sale on Facebook for $500 in Barbados has ignited some outrage among tourists and animal welfare campaigners, but according to the very organisation tasked with protecting animals in Barbados, there is nothing in law to stop it from happening.
Charmaine Hatcher, manager of the RSPCA, confirmed that green monkeys enjoy no legal protection whatsoever on the island; not from capture and not from sale.
“There’s no law to protect our Barbadian monkey at all,” she said.
Asked whether the sale of an infant monkey was a concern for the RSPCA, Hatcher said it had troubled the organisation “from the word go” but that the monkeys’ status as a nuisance works against them.
“Monkeys are technically a bit of a pest on the island too. That’s why you have the Government put a bounty on their tails. So if a government is going to put a bounty on a monkey’s tail, they’re not going to care what happens to the young ones,” she stated.
The bounty, Hatcher confirmed, is literal: hunters shoot the monkeys, bring the tails to the Ministry of Agriculture, and are paid for each one, compensation for the crop damage the animals caused.
Hatcher also confirmed that a practice tourists have long complained about – men walking the beaches with baby monkeys on leashes, charging visitors for photographs – is something the RSPCA is aware of.
“It’s the same with regards to when people have them walking on the beach and trying to get tourists to take pictures. It is tourist harassment,” she noted.
The concern has also been raised that a young monkey should never be separated from its mother.
Hatcher dismissed this, comparing it instead to routine fostering.
“Not at all. No different than dogs and puppies when you’re looking for foster mums for them. It’s not a concern.”
Her overall assessment of the situation was stark: “The concern is, yes, animals are not treated properly, but there are no laws to stop them from doing it. So there’s nothing we can do. Nothing at all.”
Hatcher drew a direct line between the monkey trade and Barbados’ broader, long-standing struggle with unregulated animal populations.
“It’s the same with all the abandonment of animals, and not insisting on animals being neutered to stop the breeding of them. Barbados is overpopulated with dogs and cats and with monkeys, but there’s no law to stop it. None at all,” she said. ( DDS)
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