On New Year’s Eve in Madera County, the California Highway Patrol pulled over the driver of a Rolls-Royce Ghost for speeding and possible DUI. Several cell phones were found in the car, as well as four large containers of marijuana — fairly routine stuff, as traffic stops go. What the cops didn’t expect to see in the car was a baby spider monkey. It was wearing a onesie and a diaper. The story made headlines, for obvious reasons. The internet was flooded with people and news outlets sharing images of the monkey, gushing over its cuteness.
“Does it need a foster home? 🙊” asked one commenter on CHP’s Facebook page.
“Where can I get one asking for a friend ? 🙂”
“I want oneeeee 😭😭”
But behind all the seemingly “cute” photos is a dark and complicated illicit trade, the third largest in the world, whose growth has been fueled by social media. The baby monkey was the victim of wildlife trafficking — and “victim” is truly the correct word here.
The wildlife trade is a brutal industry that takes many forms and has its tendrils in some unexpected places. Criminal enterprises associated with the drugs, firearm, and human trafficking smuggle endangered animals into and out of the states, harming, traumatizing, and even killing them in the process.
“For these highly intelligent animals that live in complicated social structures, the severe emotional and behavioral trauma from what’s happened will haunt them all their lives,” said Alex Herman, vice president of veterinary services for the Oakland Zoo.
The trade in animals has grown exponentially over the years. A 2023 report by Moody’s Analytics estimated that between 2018 to 2021, the frequency of wildlife trafficking increased by over 150% globally. While tracking and quantifying the trade is difficult, the industry is believed to bring in $20 billion in illicit trade.
California, particularly in areas around large ports as well as land and maritime borders, has seen a significant growth in the industry. In Los Angeles, things got so severe that in 2023 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums launched a pilot program, the Wildlife Confiscation Network, to try to tackle the issue in Southern California. The program was a success, helping to establish a coordinated approach to a complex issue, but the need went beyond one region. Soon the organization spread to include partners across the states. This network is how Azules, the baby spider monkey from the CHP arrest, ended up in the care of the Oakland Zoo.
The New Year’s Eve driver was arrested and faces multiple charges, including possession of an exotic animal, but the investigation into Azules’ case is ongoing, and her origins are unknown to the public. That she was found at all makes her something of a special case. Countless others — monkeys, bears, big cats, reptiles, fish and birds — never make the news, let alone make it to a safe place.
The illicit wildlife trade is growing
The wildlife trade is a global industry. Animals can be captured or bred on one continent and end up in the hands of someone else on another. Baby spider monkeys like Azules are often stolen from their mothers in Guatemala, who are killed to make capturing the babies easier. Whole troops of these monkeys can be slaughtered in order to take a couple of babies.
Port cities and cities with large borders are often entry and exit places for the trade. The Bay Area — with several large ports, large sea borders, and a handful of airports — is no exception. San Francisco ranked among the top three ports in trafficking cases between 2015 and 2019, according to a report from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the Wildlife Trafficking Alliance.
While it is clear to those who work against this industry that trafficking has increased at these entry points, the issue can be so widespread, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, that it gets hard to measure just how pervasive the problem is.
“You’re having animals being smuggled in on every port of entry that we have into the country, land borders from Mexico, sea borders from China, from airports, from everywhere,” said Nathan Smith, captain for California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Special Operations Unit. “So we obviously have a large issue. We can’t really quantify it, because a lot of it’s unknown.”
While measurements can be difficult, the impact is clear. Beyond the damage to the animals themselves, wildlife trafficking can have severe economic, environmental, and logistical effects on both the countries from which the animals are taken and where they arrive.
Snatching animals from their natural habitat can have sprawling impacts on their ecosystems. Animals smuggled across borders can increase the risk of disease spreading both from the animals to humans and vice versa, said Smith. If a smuggled animal like a fish or reptile is released into the California environment, they can prey on local flora and fauna, overwhelm them, or spread disease to them.
California has strict laws against people owning certain exotic species. For many in the state, this might seem like an issue that doesn’t involve them. However, according to experts, people may be accidentally supporting the illicit wildlife trade in a surprising way: social media.
The role of social media
One way that people find and sell illegal animals is through private social media groups, according to officials. But it’s not just those looking to buy and sell online; there are also people making money off social media content featuring these animals, which in turn increases the demand not only for more of this content but also for the animals themselves.
“I’m seeing a lot more social media influencers possessing these animals and highlighting and showing them off to the public,” Smith said, “which I think is driving demand, people not understanding the impact or the background of the path it took to get that animal into that situation and how devastating that can be, both internationally and domestically.”
The Oakland Zoo agrees with this sentiment. When animals like Azules the spider monkey come in, zoo staffers have to be careful what pictures they post of animals. Even official images from an institution like the Oakland Zoo can be used inappropriately by those sharing animal videos online — for instance if an animal is pictured being held by someone who is not clearly veterinary staff. What may seem like a harmless photo can, when circulated beyond its original context, misrepresent the relationship as something akin to a pet-human relationship.
Remember those comments on CHP’s Facebook page after the New Year’s Eve traffic stop? Some lamented the monkey’s condition, but far more of them squealed over how cute the monkey was; how they should return the pet to the driver; how they wanted a baby monkey, too.
If you search on social media for a term like spider monkey or axolotl, countless videos will appear. The spread and pervasiveness of this type of content only feeds the industry. Even seemingly innocent videos can have devastating impacts on the current and future animals involved.
“If you see a video of a little baby spider monkey having fun playing with a duck, that’s probably a trafficked spider monkey, it’s probably really unhealthy, there’s a high chance it’s just going to die after the video,” said Herman. “People are taking them from the wild to create this social media content for profit. So even looking at cute pictures of wildlife in someone’s house or playing with a domestic animal, you can be contributing to the decimation of the species in the wild and a very, very poor quality of life, even death for the individual animal.”
Officials encourage people who do come across these images or social groups to educate themselves on the situation and to not engage with this content, which means nothings liking or sharing this type of media, or following its purveyors. If people see animals being sold or advertised on local social groups, Smith said, it’s important that individuals report these groups to help officials in their interdiction efforts.
‘It will never be the normal life’
When Azules the baby spider monkey arrived at the Oakland Zoo, she was malnourished, traumatized, and suffering from a respiratory infection and severe diaper rash. It should go without saying that even though Azules is a baby, she is also a monkey. A onesie and a diaper are not meant for baby monkeys. The diaper Azules was wearing probably wasn’t changed for an egregious amount of time.
“This is a wild animal that should look wild, and having them wear cute clothing and live in our homes, that kind of thing is actually a cruelty to them,” said Herman.
People who possess these animals may really care for them, said Herman, but ultimately the actions they take are hurting them. While we don’t know how the person previously in possession of Azules felt toward the monkey, we do know the consequences. When the young monkey arrived at the zoo on New Year’s Eve, the effects of her malnourishment were clear. Her tiny body was experiencing “extreme muscle wasting,” said Herman, and was covered in patchy hair and a thickened, dry skin often associated with malnutrition.
Once Azules was stabilized she was put under general anesthesia and tested for diseases. Luckily, none of her bones were broken as a result of her poor diet, but she did have a case of lice. She was treated for her conditions during her time at the zoo.
Teaching the public to understand and respect animals has been a passion of the Oakland Zoo for the last 30 years. Due to the rise in need for wildlife rescue, the zoo has increasingly taken on that work on both the local and federal level.
When zoos take in animals that have been victims of wildlife trafficking, they are lending resources on top of the resources that go into the regular care of their existing animals. This is no small task. Animals coming in from being trafficked are often malnourished and suffering from fractures or bone loss or illness.
Nik Dehejia, who’s been with the Oakland Zoo for 19 years, the last four of which as the CEO, said that while the zoo has lent a hand by taking in more animals through confiscations over the years, it is also dedicated to promoting regulations to protect animals. This work includes supporting local native species. The Oakland Zoo and others have done significant advocacy around repopulating the California condor and protecting iconic Oakland species like the black-crowned night heron. Dehejia said the zoo also works to further federal legislation creating stronger protections for animals nationally, but that more support is needed.
Regulations around owning and selling wild animals vary greatly across states. In 2022, the United States passed the Big Cat Public Safety Act to stop the private ownership of big cats as pets and halt public contact with big cats in exhibitions across the country. Similar bills to protect primates have yet to pass.
“These are not pets. These are animals that should never be in anybody’s possession,” said Dehejia. He wants people “to be conscious, be informed about what you buy, certainly what you eat as well.”
“These are all sorts of steps that consumers can take,” he said, “and certainly at the end of the day, they have a voice in terms of who they vote for, who supports strong environmental regulations.”
While legislation moves slowly, millions of animals suffer the consequences. Animals like Azules are the “lucky ones.” After her time at the Oakland Zoo she was transferred to live with a troop of other spider monkeys, but Herman dismissed the notion of a happy ending to her story.
“She left to be integrated with a group of spider monkeys so she could have more of a normal life,” she said. “It will never be the normal life that she would have had with her parents and her family in the Mayan biosphere.”
