During a routine border check in early September, Zimbabwean officials confiscated 25 juvenile monkeys found in cages in the back of a truck entering the country from Zambia and bound for South Africa.
The officials, with the Chirundu Anti-Poaching Project, a joint operation between Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) and Hemmersbach Rhino Force, immediately knew something was wrong because the animals weren’t native to their country. They arrested the four men in the truck.
“They were smuggling the monkeys,” says ZimParks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo. “They tried to bribe some of the officers at the border.”
To date, this is one of the largest known confiscations of illegally traded primates in Africa, according to the U.S.-based Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA), a
