09/29/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/1CuDY8298m/?mibextid=wwXIfr
THE PRICE OF A “CUTE” VIDEO 💔🐒 BABIES ARE STOLEN FROM THEIR MOTHERS, WILDLIFE IS NOT A PET
Behind the viral videos of baby spider monkeys in diapers, hugging stuffed toys and being treated like human babies, there can be a brutal hidden reality.
In October 2025, U.S. authorities told CBS News that nearly 90 baby spider monkeys had been confiscated at the Texas–Mexico border in just 18 months — and officials believed that represented only a fraction of the illegal trade.
Federal investigators have documented how traffickers target the babies. Spider monkey mothers fiercely protect their young, so according to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service testimony, poachers may have to kill or incapacitate mothers and other members of the troop to take a baby.
And the demand isn't disappearing.
💁 A major 2026 study by WWF, IFAW and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums monitored social media for just six weeks in 2025 and found:
🔴 1,614 live primates advertised for sale
🔴 1,131 posts from 122 sellers
🔴 Spider monkeys were among the species offered
🔴 Prices ranged from $250 to $6,500
🔴 Sellers often disguised sales as “adoptions” or “rehoming.”
Then, in August 2026, Mexico's environmental authority PROFEPA launched a national campaign warning that monkeys are not pets.
Between 2019 and 2026, PROFEPA seized 137 Mexican primates involved in illegal trafficking — including 96 spider monkeys. The agency states that Mexican spider monkeys are classified as endangered in Mexico.
And this is still happening.
Just days ago, on September 22, 2026, PROFEPA reported the seizure of two spider monkeys being kept in private homes in Chihuahua.
💁 A baby monkey on your screen may look adorable.
💔But the video doesn't show the forest it came from.
💔It doesn't show its mother.
💔 It doesn't show what happened to its family.
💔 And it doesn't show the suffering behind the journey.
A wild baby belongs with its mother — not in a diaper, a living room or a viral video.
🐒 DON'T BUY. DON'T SHARE THE DEMAND. DON'T MAKE WILDLIFE A PET.
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