How the slow loris became someone's 'pet'

STEP ONE: CAPTURE

Thousands of slow lorises are poached from the wild to be illegally sold on the street or in animal markets. Often whole families of slow lorises living in the wild will be captured for the pet trade.

STEP TWO: TEETH CUTTING

Before a slow loris is sold as a pet, its teeth are cut out using nail clippers, wire cutters or pliers with no anaesthetic. This is to make them easy to handle and to protect humans from their potentially deadly venomous bite. This is an incredibly painful procedure that often results in infection or death through blood loss.

STEP THREE: TRANSPORT

Lorises are transported hidden away in dark, overcrowded and poorly ventilated containers. The stress of this transport results in a mortality rate of between 30% and 90%. Often captured lorises are found in crates alongside the bodies of other lorises that have died.

Why slow lorises are not suitable pets

• Slow lorises are nocturnal animals. Therefore, being kept in a brightly lit room is incredibly uncomfortable and causes pain and suffering.

• Slow lorises cannot express natural behaviours in captivity. In the wild they travel long distances at night in their search for food, making confinement in a small cage incredibly cruel.

• In the wild the slow loris would feed on a complex diet of fruits and insects, owners often struggle to meet these special dietary needs. This leads to obesity as well as other serious health problems such as: infection, pneumonia, diabetes, metabolic bone disease and malnutrition.

• Slow lorises have a venomous bite that is harmful to humans. Usually their teeth are clipped but if their teeth are still intact they mix venom secreted from a gland inside their upper arm with saliva to deliver a venomous bite. This can cause anaphylactic shock and even death in humans.

• It is illegal in many countries to keep a loris as a pet. Most countries have rules against the purchase of exotic species (including the slow loris). It is highly doubtful that any slow loris would be being kept as a pet legally.

• Slow lorises are in serious danger of extinction, with the biggest threat to survival being the illegal trade in wildlife. Having a slow loris as a pet encourages the trade and therefore pushes these extraordinary animals closer to extinction.

• They use urine to mark their territory – making them rather smelly!

The truth about Sonya and Kinako

There are many videos and images of slow lorises being kept as pets circulating on the internet. Two of the most popular are 'Slow loris loves being tickled' and 'Slow loris eating a riceball'.

Without an understanding of the behaviour and physiology of slow lorises, it is easy to assume that these slow loris pets are happy and enjoying being tickled and eating rice balls. Sadly, this could not be further from the truth ...

Sonya the slow loris is in an incredibly defensive position. Lorises are the only venomous primate and this venom is secreted from a gland on the inside of their elbow. Lorises raise their arms and mix the venom with saliva before biting their victim. The bite is extremely painful and the venom can bring on anaphylactic shock and even death in humans. This slow loris is not putting its arms up to ask for more, it is terrified and trying to defend itself!

Both of the slow lorises in these videos are incredibly uncomfortable. Slow lorises are nocturnal animals, their eyes have adapted to see in the dark which makes being in a brightly lit room uncomfortable and distressing.

In addition, both lorises are severely obese. In the wild the slow loris would feed on a complex diet of fruits and insects, owners often struggle to meet these special dietary needs. This leads to obesity as well as other serious health problems such as: infection, pneumonia, diabetes and malnutrition. Unfortunately many of the slow lorises that we rescue are suffering so badly from health problems relating to an inadequate diet that they are no longer able to be released back into the wild. We believe an inadequate diet and a lack of sunlight to be the cause of rescued loris Cepat's metabolic bone disease and Romut's infected tumours.

Before a slow loris is sold as a pet, its teeth are cut out using nail clippers, wire cutters or pliers with no anaesthetic. This is to make them easy to handle and to protect humans from their potentially deadly venomous bite. This is an incredibly painful procedure that often results in infection or death through blood loss.