2 weeks Ago
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Primate Sanctuary in Niagara Falls needs your help.
The sanctuary recently received a critically endangered, black-handed spider monkey infant named Boris. He was smuggled across the Texas border, and now he's here in Western New York. Boris is just one of many spider monkeys forcefully taken away from their homes, so now the sanctuary is asking for money to help build a new home for him and other rescues.
Carmen Presti, vice president of The Primate Sanctuary, visited Most Buffalo — with Boris — to discuss how the sanctuary is helping him. 2 On Your Side: Carmen, we briefly went over Boris's story, but could you tell us more about what's going on? Presti: So, like you said, he's a critically endangered black-handed spider monkey. His mom was shot and killed in southern Mexico, and he was smuggled across the border and sold on the pet trade market.
This is an ongoing problem. If you look at TikTok, Facebook, and so on, you'll see all the primates that are on there, and almost every one of them was forcefully taken away from its mom, or the mother was shot and killed. They're getting them just for clicks, and it's not fair.
"Critically endangered" means that it's uh 90% of their population is gone, so it's not a good thing. Within the next 10 years, they could be extinct. 2 On Your Side: This is a problem beyond Boris.
How many rescues is the sanctuary getting? Presti: We're not getting that many because we're so far north from the border, but the facilities along the Texas border and the Arizona border is just inundated with these guys. There's so many of them that they're hiring more staff and so on it. It's, it's bad.
2 On Your Side: So how can people in Western New York help? What are you asking for? Presti: Right now, we are running a GoFundMe. It's Help baby Boris: Build his new home . So there's a GoFundMe , and we also are running our annual Facebook holiday fundraiser, and all proceeds are going to Boris' new habitat, and it's also for the other primates too.
For every $5 donation, you'll get one ticket, and you could win a beautiful portrait done by Nick Derrick Art Studios. 2 On Your Side: You know, he's very curious. He has a mic, right? He know he knows what to look, right? So how has your life changed from, obviously, you know, getting Boris" Presti: It's changed a lot.
You're not able to do anything. He's with me 24/7 because of what he's went through. He sleeps right next to me.
I'm his security. At the same time, he's going through a rehabilitation process where he's going with other primates, and he's starting to learn what we call monkey politics..
