The most rewarding end to any legislative campaign to end animal suffering is when we get the opportunity to rescue some lucky survivors, and just recently, our lucky survivor was a baby female woolly monkey in Peru. 

The story is the same everywhere, gangs go into the forests and net whole families of monkeys, often, the mother is killed, and the baby taken. This is likely what happened to our baby. This wickedly damaging crime disrupts the social structure of the local populations and the whole ecosystem. 

Fate and luck played a big role in this rescue; the baby was seized by Peru’s wildlife department, SERFOR (Selva Central District), ADI and partners UPA organised transport and veterinary care. We had the perfect solution; Fausto, a woolly monkey we rescued as a baby in 2014, was now alone in his rainforest habitat after his two companions passed away.

While ADI supporters gave towards her new introduction habitat (to meet Fausto safely) and her two-day journey on foot, by road, air (grateful thanks to LATAM Airlines) and boat, along the Iquitos Amazon tributary to her new ADI-funded sanctuary home, we started building.

Meanwhile, supporters voted to find a new human name for our baby girl and settled on Chaska, a beautiful native Andean name (Quechua language) meaning ‘bright star’. The first touch through the fence between Chaska and Fausto was precious. Introductions are necessarily slow and cautious, over a period of several weeks. After all, we hope for Fausto and Chaska to be together for life (up to 30 years). 

We hold onto these moments where we can put right a terrible wrong. The long road of public awareness, education, and lobbying for legislation helps governments and legislators do the right thing and enact laws to protect the non-humans who share our planet. They all need protection from the most destructive excesses of our species. Little Chaska is our bright star, encouraging us along the way.

ADI’s exposure of illegal wildlife markets of Latin America, Asia and Africa, the bushmeat trade, monkeys for laboratories, pets and other exotics, has provided the means for governments to act, on legislation and enforcement. Crucially, once laws are passed ADI offers solutions to hard-pressed government departments which may not have the resources to remove and relocate the victims during law enforcement operations. 

Animal trafficking is a crime against us all. Stealing other inhabitants of our planet from their homes, killing and destroying families and populations, strips our forests of the biodiversity we all need to maintain our planet’s ecosystems. Extinction is not just them; it can hurt us, too. 

Have a Chaska day,