YAOUNDÉ — It’s not uncommon to see chimpanzees kept as pets in private homes and hotels in Guinea-Bissau. Chimpanzees can be seen chained to trees or metal poles, or living alone in small metal cages, often without a permanent water source and lacking room to walk or jump around. Maria Joana Ferreira da Silva, a Portuguese researcher from the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources at the University of Porto in Portugal, published an assessment of the illegal trade of chimpanzees in in the journal Conservation Letters in February. She writes that no systematic survey of the trade has been carried out across Guinea-Bissau, but cites a 2020 survey conducted by Guinea-Bissau’s Institute for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (IBAP). Conducted in the central region of Bafatá and the southern regions of Tombali and Quinara, it found 98 people there kept wild-born primates in captivity. Among these were five chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes); the majority of the captive animals were patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas). Ferreira da Silva’s own fieldwork between 2006 and 2022 recorded 18 chimpanzees being held in homes or hotels. The chimpanzees’ captors told IBAP researchers they had bought the animals as infants from hunters who had either killed their mothers for the meat, or targeted the troops specifically to get infants for sale. Despite it being illegal to hunt or keep chimpanzees, they freely admitted to keeping the apes captive and invited strangers to take photographs with them. According to Ferreira da Silva, most captive chimpanzees die of…This article was originally published on Mongabay