Why I do what I do

This article popped up for me recently and I'd thought I'd share it here as well. This is why I do what I do and why places like rescue and rehab centres and sanctuaries (like the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre where I currently work) exist. The baboon in this picture is the same species of baboons that we have here in Malawi and the same as those that I released earlier this year. The photograph here absolutely breaks my heart and enrages me at the same time.

You can read the article here, although I've reposted it below, written by Solon Kelleher for The Dodo

https://www.thedodo.com/wild-animal-trade-1341144837.html#

Every day, animals are bought and sold as easily as a cup of coffee or a pair of jeans. This is the face of one of those animals, in a powerful photo.

Wildlife photographer Jabruson was traveling to Kenya to photograph elephant poaching. While passing through a village, he noticed something unbelievable and demanded his driver stop the car.

Jabruson, who was born in Kenya, captured the fear and desperation of a yellow baboon who was caught by farmers from a nearby village.

I saw a group of children with a tethered yellow baboon," Jabruson said in a statement through Por El Planeta's 2015 photo contest. "It had been caught when its troop raided local crops – the result of habitat loss."

Once he snapped a few images, the children realized the monkey had piqued the photographer's interest. The photograph above was taken as the children offered the roped baboon for sale.
Jabruson was faced with a difficult decision: purchase the monkey and transport him to a rehabilitation facility or leave him in the hands of the children. He explains:

As a visitor I could not and would not pay for the baboon. To do this would only stimulate the capture of wild animals for tourists and visitors. I couldn't confiscate the animal from these people – this being completely outside of my jurisdiction. Besides, indigenous people believe very strongly that they have every right to be doing what they're doing and don't need a foreigner telling them what to do when it's their children that go hungry at night because a wild animal has just destroyed that season's crops.

The photographer chose to take the image " to highlight yet another human-wildlife conflict issue so common in Central Africa" and left the monkey behind.

After he left the village Jabruson followed up with local authorities who "considered the matter none of my business." He wrote, "as a consequence I was never was able to establish what eventually happened to the young baboon."

This monkey is only one of the innumerable commodified animals worldwide.

Both alive and dead, animals can be worth a pretty penny to humans. The illegal trade of wildlife and natural resources is estimated to be worth about $213 billion dollars, according to a 2014 United Nations and Interpol report.

Unfortunately, as this photo shows, it's the animals who pay the price.