The Truth Behind Adorable Slow Loris Videos WIll Break Your Heart

• by Alicia Graef
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Slow loris videos have continued to make their way around the Internet after one showing a slow loris being tickled went viral a few years ago. But while these creatures are undeniably adorable, the truth behind these videos is anything but cute.

The UK-based International Animal Rescue (IAR) has launched a new Tickling is Torture campaign to help get us to stop unwittingly promoting the mistreatment of these little creatures, who the organization believes are suffering terribly as a result of our desire to keep these imperiled primates as pets.

With those big eyes and cute little faces, it’s easy to want to share photos and videos, or want to have one of your very own, but the continued promotion is helping spur the demand that’s not only threatening them in the wild, but is also causing serious harm to those who are taken for captivity.

According to IAR, these shy, nocturnal animals who are easily stressed are subjected to a number of harmful activities when they become part of the illegal pet trade. After being taken from their homes in the rainforest, their teeth are crudely clipped or broken off without anesthesia to make them defenseless, which often leads to infection and death. Unfortunately, the trouble doesn’t end there.

“Unspeakable cruelty is involved in the trade in slow lorises and the public must be made aware of this. Apart from the suffering caused by capturing them from the wild and clipping their teeth, keeping these shy little primates in captivity is inherently cruel. Slow lorises travel long distances at night in their hunt for food. They feed on crickets and other live insects, as well as birds’ eggs, fruit and the sap of certain trees. YouTube videos show pet lorises eating rice balls and other unsuitable food, so it’s no surprise that most of them are malnourished and suffering from serious health problems,” said Phily Kennington, the campaign’s leader.

IAR isn’t the only one concerned with the fate of slow lorises and how the Internet is being used to spur interest in them. A paper published in 2013 by Anna Nekaris, a professor in anthropology and primate conservation at Oxford Brookes University, highlights some of the problems those who survive being captured and sold at live markets as pets can suffer from.

She writes on her website, Little Fireface Project, “owners have no idea how to care for these social primates with their specialised diets, and their deaths are very long and painful as they starve to death in loneliness, obese with diabetes or rotting teeth from being fed fruit.”

Then there’s the tickling thing. The first hugely viral video featured a slow loris named Sonya with her arms up as she’s being tickled in a brightly-lit room. But slow loris advocates want people to know Sonya and others like her aren’t so much enjoying being tickled, as they are terrified and raising their arms in defense.

These uniquely venomous primates raise their arms to access a venomous gland on their elbow that’s combined with saliva in their mouths. According to IAR, “Given the chance – and if its teeth were still intact – it would give the person doing the tickling a serious bite.”

Of the eight recognized species of slow loris native to South and Southeast Asia, four are now listed as “Vulnerable ” and one, the Javan slow loris, is now listed as “Critically Endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature  (IUCN) – the remaining three haven’t been evaluated.

They face a number of threats that put their future in jeopardy ranging from deforestation to being killed as bushmeat or for traditional medicine, but the exotic pet trade is one of the biggest problems they have now.

IAR takes in slow lorises for rehabilitation and release at its primate rescue center in Indonesia, but sadly for those who have been saved but had their teeth damaged, rescuers can’t release them back into the wild.

For now, IAR and other slow loris advocates are calling on us to help by not supporting the pet trade and by not sharing or promoting any media that features them as pets.

For more info on how to raise awareness about the slow loris pet trade and to help them in the wild, visit Tickling is Torture and the Little Fireface Project.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-truth-behind-adorable-slow-loris-videos-will-break-your-heart.html#ixzz3dzMJTFTZ