Death by Pet Trade
How thousands of Slow Lorises are killed each year.
What is a Slow Loris
A Slow Loris is a small, slow-moving nocturnal primate with a short or absent tail, living in dense vegetation in southern Asia.
How a Slow Loris becomes someones pet. Step One: Capture
Thousands of slow lorises are poached from the wild to be illegally sold on the street or in animal markets. Often whole families of slow lorises living in the wild will be captured for the pet trade.
Step Two: Teeth Cutting
Before a slow loris is sold as a pet, its teeth are cut out using nail clippers, wire cutters or pliers with no anaesthetic. This is to make them easy to handle and to protect humans from their potentially deadly venomous bite. This is an incredibly painful procedure that often results in infection or death through blood loss.
Step Three: Transport
Lorises are transported hidden away in dark, overcrowded and poorly ventilated containers. The stress of this transport results in a mortality rate of between 30% and 90%. Often captured lorises are found in crates alongside the bodies of other lorises that have died.
Facts about the Slow Loris
- The slow loris has a bite so poisonous that its venom can kill. Currently there is no known cure. It is still not clear for what reason the slow loris is venomous.
- The slow loris is endangered due to both habitat loss and hunting for illegal pet and traditional medicine trades. In some parts of Asia it is known as the animal which can cure 100 diseases.
- The slow loris is amongst the rarest primate on earth; they devolved from their closest cousins the African bushbabies around 40 million years ago.
Slow Loris eating Banana
What can save the Slow Loris
Thousands of Slow Loris's are taken from their home each year and are sold on the streets in Asia and to American citizens. Oxford Brooks University did a study and found that 53% of slow loris's taken end up in America. The SSLF's goal is to inform the public about the slow loris and how they are abused just so they can be someones pet. If people see that these endangered animals are being mistreated they will stop being purchased. So the SSLF is asking you to share this link to five friends so we an spread the work and stop the mistreatment.