Border agents save 7 endangered spider monkeys being smuggled in a backpack: ‘Aw, poor babies’

Texas border patrol brokers rescued seven endangered child spider monkeys that had been smuggled inside a backpack over the southern border.

Video from an arrest in Brownsville on Thursday reveals officers opening the bag and discovering the monkeys huddled collectively.

“Aw, poor infants,” one of many brokers says.

The monkeys had been seized from a juvenile offender, who stuffed the simians inside a backpack that had holes poked in it to permit them to breathe, officers mentioned.

“This case highlights the lengths smugglers will go to maximise income with no regard for the lives of migrants or animals,” mentioned Gloria Chavez, the chief patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector.

The endangered monkeys have since been transferred to the brokers with the US Fish and Wildlife Division. Their present situation was not made instantly out there.

This isn’t the primary time border brokers have caught the endangered monkeys being smuggled throughout the border.

Final 12 months, Savannah Nicole Valdez, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty to smuggling a spider monkey into the US by means of the usage of a beer field when officers caught her making an attempt to promote the simian on-line.

In 2021, one other girl was detained in South Texas after border brokers discovered her carrying 4 spider monkeys inside a duffle bag.

Spider monkeys are named over their behavior of dangling from bushes utilizing their lengthy tails. They’re among the many 25 most threatened primates on the earth, in keeping with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The simians, who reside within the rainforests of Central and South America, are dying out because of habitat loss, looking, fragmentation and pet commerce smuggling, the WCS famous.