Oyster the marmoset caused quite a stir last week. It all started last Friday, when there was a commotion on the 302 bus at Kensal Rise, north-west London.
The aisle was blocked by a laundry bag sticking out from the luggage rack. Inside the bag was a cage. And inside the cage was a teeny monkey. Dehydrated, distressed, ‘chirping and jumping’ about, quivering in fear and clearly dumped there deliberately by her owner.
Most of us have heard now how the thoughtful driver took the monkey back to the Metroline Bus Depot at Willesden station and alerted the RSPCA. And how staff named her Oyster, after the travel card.
And how, by a happy twist of fate, while she didn’t quite make it back to her family and her natural habitat in the Brazilian rainforest, she did head off to a specialist sanctuary which, by chance, had been looking for a female companion for its own lone male marmoset. So it seemed like a happy ending to warm our hearts.
But it turns out that Oyster is just one of dozens of miniature marmosets being dumped by their owners over recent months. And, according to rescue experts, she was very much one of the lucky ones.
‘Some are driven out and left in the countryside, or thrown out of car windows. Others are just flushed down the toilet – yes they’re small enough to flush,’ says Lindsay McKenna, founder of Wildside Exotic Rescue in Herefordshire.
‘People don’t know how to keep them. They like the idea of having a pet monkey, they’ve seen them on TikTok or Instagram, but they don’t really have a clue, and now with all the recent changes…’
In April, much needed new legislation was brought in requiring primate owners to apply for a licence to keep their animal and, according to the authorities, the take up rate has been worryingly low.
Last Friday, there was a commotion on the 302 bus at Kensal Rise, north-west London
The aisle was blocked by a laundry bag sticking out from the luggage rack. Inside the bag was a cage. And inside the cage was a teeny monkey
Oyster the marmoset headed off to a specialist sanctuary which, by chance, had been looking for a female companion for its own lone male marmoset
While tighter controls are clearly a good thing, Lindsay worries that there is no amnesty and no safety net. Owners who had not really thought through their pet monkey – its care, diet, environment, longevity (they can live up to 15 years) – are simply panicking about acquiring a specialist licence and offloading their pets.
‘If we’re not careful, a whole generation of exotic pets will be flushed down loos or thrown out of cars,’ she says.
And it’s not just primates who are unwanted. Over recent years – thanks partly to social media trends and easier access to wild animals on the internet – the UK has become awash with exotic ‘pets’ better suited to the wilds of Africa, the tropical rainforest of the Amazon basin or steppe grasslands than a terrace in Chesterfield or bungalow in Bristol.
Which is alarming for many reasons, not least animal welfare, disease and biosecurity. But also because a lot of them are downright dangerous.
According to research by international wildlife charity Born Free, more than 2,200 dangerous wild animals, ranging from venomous snakes to big cats, crocodiles and primates, are currently being kept legally across Britain under the 50-year-old Dangerous Wild Animals Act (DWAA).
Campaigners, including Born Free’s founder patron Dame Joanna Lumley, have been clamouring for a change in the law. They want to outlaw the keeping of cobras and rattlesnakes in our bedrooms, monkeys in our sitting rooms and, yes, in some cases, alligators in our garden ponds.
‘Wild animals should never ever be kept as pets, no matter how much we feel we could give them a wonderful home,’ said Lumley.
‘It is shocking that so many are still being legally kept in private hands, propping up a cruel and ghastly trade.’ While some of these animals are located in educational facilities and conservation sanctuaries, a worrying number are in domestic homes around the country – in bedrooms, sitting rooms and garden sheds.
Over recent years, the UK has become awash with exotic ‘pets’ better suited to the wilds of Africa than a bungalow in Bristol (Chris Hector from Essex Jungle with Hector the monitor lizard)
According to research by Born Free, more than 2,200 dangerous wild animals are currently being kept legally across Britain (pictured: Lindsay McKenna, founder of WildSide Exotic Rescue CIC; Kirsty Gallacher, Born Free patron; Chris Lewis, Born Free research manager)
That includes the world’s deadliest snake, the saw-scaled viper, one of which is currently licensed to be kept in Greater London, for goodness’ sake.
All of which sparks countless questions. About animal cruelty and our safety. About why anyone would want to keep a crocodile or a giant lizard in their back garden in Kent. And why the DWAA – which traditionally was all about keeping humans safe from wild animals rather than focusing on the impact of incarceration on the animal – has not been updated for 50 years. Which seems utterly shameful in this day and age.
People like Lindsay and Paula Stewart, another exotic animal rescuer, and Simon Marsh of Wild Welfare pick up the pieces.
‘We call wild animals exotic pets, but they’re still wild animals with all the behavioural traits of wild animals, even if bred in captivity,’ says Lindsay, who left her corporate job 17 years ago to rescue these animals and currently, with her team, looks after 43 different species including mountain lions, lynx, bobcats, skunks, wallabies, silver foxes and a zebra.
Most came from domestic premises, including four of the mountain lions, which were living in back gardens and can be highly dangerous if they escape.
‘A domesticated wild animal is probably the most dangerous, because they are not afraid of humans,’ says Lindsay. ‘So yes, if they were hungry, they would attack.’ Many of the rescued animals are in a terrible state. Both psychological – pacing, spinning, head turning, self-mutilating – and physical, often suffering from metabolic bone disease and rickets thanks to appalling nutrition and lack of sunlight.
She tells of the poor marmoset who’d lived on marshmallows and dried bananas for the first year of her life and had no sunlight.
‘She looked different structurally to the others and had terrible bone issues,’ she says.
‘How can it be OK to keep a wild animal like that inside a centrally heated house in a hamster cage on its own?’
Lindsay found one young alpaca who was in such a state it had to be euthanised, and mountain lions who have been kept in tiny concrete enclosures.
Paula Stewart, who runs The Animal Talent Agency, started rescuing ten years ago after stumbling across a neglected raccoon – on the banned list in the UK as an invasive species – in a garage in Cardiff.
‘It was a Christmas present for the daughter, was no longer wanted and had become very aggressive and was kept in a crate in the dark,’ she says.
Paula’s corn snake, Candy, was rescued from a domestic house fire. And her beloved bearded dragon, George, was found in an empty flat in Cheshire after the tenants moved out.
‘There was no heating, lighting, food or water. He was just left in a tank abandoned.’
All of which drastically affected his health. He has metabolic bone disease from getting too cold. A crooked tail where it was broken. An underbite on his jaw where it wasn’t properly formed.
Both Lindsay and Paula have noticed a surge in numbers lately and blame social media influencers for encouraging the craze in exotic pets. ‘It’s showing off. It gives them more followers on social media,’ says Lindsay.
Across Instagram and Facebook, videos showing small marmosets sharing strawberry yogurts, sitting on their owners’ heads or being groomed with a toothbrush, garner thousands of comments.
Meanwhile, horrible TikTok videos of men throwing dead rabbits to their gigantic pythons in their sitting rooms gain millions of views. ‘It’s the shock factor that excites people. They’re using wild animals as entertainment. It’s not right and it’s fuelling the market’ says Paula.
Given the horrors they all mop up every week, the animal rescuers are surprisingly generous about the owners. ‘Many really love their pets, but they don’t understand their highly complex needs,’ says Simon Marsh of Wild Welfare. ‘It’s often ignorance as much as neglect.’
Lindsay agrees: ‘The majority never intended harm. They were just swept up in the fascination of it and misled by breeders.’
Many might not know that a marmoset like Oyster is a highly intelligent, sociable, sentient creature, which would naturally live in a linked family group in the wild where they eat fruit, vegetables and insects, rather than on its own in a hamster cage next to the TV.
‘Owners treat them like miniature babies or humans and expect far too much of them. They are wild animals,’ says Paula.
New cobra or ball python owners need to understand that keeping the intelligent snakes in a tank in your bedroom is not meeting their welfare needs.
And that bigger snakes eat entire rabbits and guinea pigs – skin, fur and all – that come frozen in packs of 20 (it is illegal to feed snakes live animals in the UK) and will clog up your freezer for decades.
Those purchasing a pet alligator will need a lot more than a garden pond and a couple of steaks a week; in fact the reptiles need a constantly monitored environment complete with UV lights, humidity controls and water temperature and quality checks.
A big part of the problem is that the new type of exotic pet suppliers are no longer experienced pet shop owners who have the opportunity to vet buyers, and advise and educate them. Now the market is flooded with dodgy breeders who advertise on the internet and sell to anyone happy to pay between £1,000-£4,000 for a baby marmoset, or £30-£300 for a ball python.
Which means that ownership comes with a lot of unwelcome surprises. For starters, how long all these animals live.
Forget the usual four years for a guinea pig, or three for a hamster – a snake can live for 30 years, a lizard between 15 and 20. And up to 80 years for a tortoise or parrot. Even a marmoset will live 14 or 15 years – a lot longer than any social media craze.
Animals, too, can escape.
Every week there are stories of missing exotic – and often dangerous – pets. Nine days ago Stella, a 3ft ball python, was found in a neighbour’s garden in Southborough, Kent, having given her owners the slip for a fortnight.
And for days recently, residents of the village of Bramerton, Norfolk, were on red alert after a large cat, likened to ‘a small leopard’ was spotted roaming the countryside and had been reported to the RSPCA.
Nine days ago Stella, a 3ft ball python, was found in a neighbour’s garden in Southborough, Kent
Blaze, a Savannah cat, was found sunning itself in a plant pot in a family’s back garden
It turned out to be Blaze, a Savannah cat – a crossbreed of an African wild serval and a domestic cat – which had escaped from a nearby enclosure. Savannahs are a hot favourite on social media.
‘It’s a trophy pet thing,’ says Rick Minter, a big cat specialist. ‘But they are tricky and can be highly aggressive and predatory, so it’s a big commitment.
‘These are not cuddly cats, they can be very fierce and have been known to attack small dogs.’
They are also brilliant escape artists. And many inexperienced owners are just so relieved to see them go that they don’t bother to alert the authorities.
And is not helped by the fact that the law, as it stands, seems mad.
As Chris Lewis, Born Free’s captivity research and policy manager put it last week: ‘The Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 was intended to make the keeping of wild animals categorised as “dangerous” a wholly exceptional circumstance.
‘Yet 50 years on, we find ourselves in a situation where nearly ten times more venomous snakes are kept in British homes than British zoos, servals continue to be unnecessarily and cruelly crossbred with domestic cats to produce “fashionable” hybrids, and primates continue to be confined despite the Government acknowledging they are unsuited to being kept as pets.’
And, as a result, they are in grave danger. And their inept and misguided owners are putting the public in danger, too.
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