TORONTO, Ont. – “Free Darwin,” says placards at a protest urging the return of the now world-famous monkey that escaped a vehicle and frolicked in a North York Ikea parking lot.
The former owner of Darwin, Yasmin Nakhuda, and about 15 protesters, demonstrated outside the Toronto Animal Services’ Sheppard Avenue West office, in an effort to get the pint-sized monkey back.
Nakhuda alleges the primate was illegally taken from her. She will appear in court Thursday to try to get an interim order to have the tiny monkey returned to her.
“I am feeling pretty good based on what my legal advisors have been telling me,” she said. “At the end of the day, you have to sit in front of judge and decide. It can go either way.”
Nakhuda said she is the Ikea monkey’s “mom.”
“Unless you’ve owned a primate, you can’t really understand my relationship with Darwin,” she said. “He was not a dog. He was not a cat. He was a little person.”
“He would act like a little child. Therefore, when I call him my son, I’m not mental.”
Her 12-year-old son, Misha, said he is distraught over Darwin’s removal.
“I miss him,” he said. “He was practically like my little brother.”
Darwin now lives at the Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary in Sunderland, Ont.
Animal services identified Darwin as a rhesus macaque, which is illegal in Toronto. Nakhuda was fined $240 under the Toronto Municipal Code for keeping a prohibited animal.
The monkey captured worldwide attention earlier this month when he was spotted roaming in the parking lot of a North York Ikea, clad in a faux-shearling coat.
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I do not understand why we are focusing too much on this story. Why can’t we cover other important stories that effect our day to day life. Let the owner deal with the authorities directly, if has the right to own Darwin at her home.
This has become absolutely ridiculous. If it is illegal to own an exotic pet in the GTA then the animal should be removed period. The owner should be charged for breaking the law.
Looking in from the animal lover side of things this animal should be with its own kind and not dressed up living with humans. It is very unfortunate that even today wild animals are taken from their mothers at a very young age and sold to humans as pets. Do you really think that this monkey would prefer living with humans or its own kind. By the looks of his owner he would pick his own kind any day. Because he cannot be released into the wild because of humans, he should go to a wildlife sanctuary where he can live with his own species.
Darwin should be retured to his mom. The trauma of being away from his adopted family is cruel and unusual. He obviously was taken good care of. spy
She refers to the monkey as her son yet goes shopping and leaves the monkey alone in a car with below zero temperatures. not only that the car was unsecured and he was able to escape, fortunately he was not run over or wander into the bushes and freeze and starve to death,. would she leave a months old child alone in the car?