Jungle Friends Monkeyshines: A Mother's Plea: Protect Timmy & Dylan

Today I met Timmy and Dylan in my email inbox. What joy! On a day when my car broke down to the tune of $215.00, when my son is sick in the hospital, when I am failing Spanish and enduring a kidney infection, I smiled and giggled and clapped my hands like a little girl watching that video. That delight, however, turned to fury when I read that Timmy and Dylan’s owners are trying to take those precious primates away from Monkers, Mochi, and my heroes at Jungle Friends. How many chances, I wondered, did these people want to harm these innocent kidnapping victims? You see that is what pet monkeys are, kidnapped victims, occasionally kidnapped by the well-intentioned but ignorant, but kidnapped nonetheless. I know this because I nearly conspired to become a primate kidnapper myself.

Just imagine, all you Mothers out there, what it would feel like to be walking along in your neighborhood and have odd strangers appear out of nowhere, and rip your newborn from your arms!?? Realize that if you fight you are beaten, or worse, killed. Or, conversely, imagine knowing you are giving birth just to give your baby away to the same person who feeds and shelters you. Imagine the love and hatred for that person who sustains your life and still takes that which matters most to you----over and over and over again. ‘Takes a special kind of monster….

When I first fell in love with Monkeys I wanted one as a pet. I watched YouTube Monkey pet video’s until my eyes bled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDcwcPPq3RI&feature=youtu.be I studied each species and rented documentaries. I even, at the age of 45, went back to college to study psychology with a view towards primatology and behaviorism. I saved my pennies for the great day when I would bring home my very own emperor tamarin, or, perhaps a sweet little pygmy marmoset! Then I discovered Jungle Friends.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to initially feeling resentful and disdainful towards the organization. ‘buncha vegan hippies trying to tell people what they can and can’t have as pets---some sort of b/s authority just because they had a bad experience. I’d also be lying if I didn’t admit to knowing, in my heart of hearts, that they were absolutely right. So for several years now I have watched each new video, read each new e-newsletter, caught each TV show Kari has educated on. My biggest wish, beyond the health and happiness of my five adult children, is to go, one weekend soon, the 100 miles or so, to Jungle Friends to help out. If back surgery hadn’t got in the way it would have happened by now. Luckily, if back surgery had not gotten in the way, I might have bought that poor monkey before Kari and her amazing staff had properly educated me.

Today I am sending my donation. Dylan and Timmy need me more than some pet I wanted out of selfishness ever could have. Dylan and Timmy need to be protected from people like I was—selfish, self-absorbed, ungrateful and uneducated. They will never know their mother’s love, but they have this mother’s love.

Gabby Osborn