Two specimens of carayá monkey that were in captivity were rescued from a house and a restaurant in the Buenos Aires towns of Trenque Lauquen and Carhué and transferred to a primate rehabilitation and conservation center, located in La Cumbre, Córdoba, reported the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development.
The raids were ordered by the Federal Court of Pehuajó, with the intervention of the Federal Prosecutor of that town, and were carried out together with the Department of Environmental Crimes of the Argentine Federal Police, it was indicated in a press release.
The actions carried out last Tuesday were executed first in a local food in the town of Carhuéwhere in addition to the carayá monkey, they kidnapped a skull with antlers of a swamp deer, another two of a red deer and a taxidermy of an alligator.
All the pieces were stored illegally because they did not have the documentation that supports their legitimate origin.
The monkey was in a small cage that made it impossible to movewithout maintenance or minimum sanitary hygienic standards.
The staff then moved to a housing of the municipality of Trenque Lauquenwhere another caraya monkey was rescued that was restrained with a metal grip leather harnesswhich could cause a spinal cord injury, as specified.
Specialists clarified that the need for movement of this arboreal species is essential for the development of its four limbs and its prehensile tail that functions as a fifth limb, in addition to facilitating the obtaining of leaves for its nutrition.
In both raids, native wild birds were also found, such as rhea, talkative parrots and Argentine parrotwithout proper documentation.
The species were in judicial depositby virtue of the recommendations of the National Agri-Food Health and Quality Service (Senasa), in the framework of the health emergency due to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (IAAP) in the country, the statement specified.
After the rescues, the carayá monkeys were transferred to the facilities of a primate rehabilitation and conservation center, located in La Cumbre, province of Córdoba.
As for the hunting trophiesthe Ministry of the Environment recalled that the swamp deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), the largest native cervid in South America, is a species classified as threatened in the “Categorization of Argentine mammals according to their risk of extinction” and was declared a Monument Natural, figure of maximum legal protection that the province of Buenos Aires grants to a wild animal.
