Endangered Moroccan Macaque Seized from Illegal Owner in Belgium

The Barbary macaque was illegally detained at a private individual’s home. It is a species on the brink of extinction. About 10,000 monkeys still live in the wild in Morocco. But this population is declining, a victim of poaching and the destruction of its natural habitat.

Protected by the CITES Convention, the Barbary macaque is on List I of the Convention, which prohibits the capture in the wild and the trade of wild species on this list.

Thus, holding an animal on List I is prohibited unless the owner has a CITES European certificate attesting to the legality of the detention or has registered the animal at the time of its listing on CITES List I. This recent listing was proposed by the European Union and Morocco in 2016 and came into force in February 2017.

After finding that the owner had not complied with any of these formalities, the inspectors of the species cell of the FPS Health, after an administrative investigation, concluded that the monkey was in the hands of this private individual illegally. The inspectors and CITES experts, assisted by members of the Foundation, transferred the monkey to a new host environment.