Marmoset was stoned to death by a man who kidnapped him along with his calf to sell them as a pet

During Easter, a cruel case of animal abuse occurred in the municipality of San Francisco (Antioquia) where a man was captured after being accused of killing a marmoset with stones to steal its calf and selling it to unscrupulous people who acquire these animals as pets.

According to the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Negro and Nare River Basins (Cornare), it was a species typical of the region that is threatened by this despicable criminal practice against the environment.

“In the company of the Colombian National Police, and thanks to a citizen complaint, two gray titis were seized (

The incident occurred last Thursday, after the notice to the authorities. However, one of the specimens of this monkey that is only kept in Colombia died.

“The adult individual arrived seriously injured at our home in passing and died shortly after his admission,” they said in Cornare.

This type of cruel situation is usually caused by wildlife traffickers, who when it comes to monkeys, end up killing the adult who takes care of the calf, since by their instinct they protect them to death, as everything indicates that it also happened in this case.

“Apparently the alleged offender assaulted him while he was trying to defend the child. The other individual is under medical observation and we hope that he will soon return to his natural habitat with another group of his species,” they said in the autonomous corporation.

On the Caracol Radio station, they highlighted that the captured attacked the animal with stones in order to kidnap them and consulted with the Coordinator of Forests and Diversity of Cornare de Cornare, David Echeverry López, who indicated that this type of crime affects the environment in Antioquia.

“(This animal) is a disperser of seeds, and it is also eaten by other prey then, so it is important at the ecological level and it is a species of our region that sadly many people continue to subject it to captivity,” the official explained on that station.

According to the radio, after his capture by the police, the accused criminal will have to pay a fine for an appearance imposed on him for animal abuse and Cornare informed them that the corresponding sanctioning process was initiated for possession, trafficking and mistreatment of wildlife.

The illegal wildlife trade moves between 20 and 40 billion euros a year, according to the Ministry of Environment, where they have a record that in 2021 18,636 individuals of fauna and 282,147 of flora were seized in Colombia, for which there were 2,325 captures of those responsible.

“This is one of the most profitable businesses on the planet and much of that wildlife trafficking goes from our countries (in Latin America),” said Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Carlos Eduardo Correa, during the Second High-Level Conference of the Americas on the Illegal Trade in Wildlife, held at the department of Bolivar, with the participation of the United Kingdom and different countries of Latin America.

The senior official stressed on that occasion that Colombia has two valuable tools to combat the illegal trade in wildlife and curb the loss of biodiversity: the Environmental Crimes Act, which criminalizes this crime with up to 12 years in prison, and Law 2153 of 2021, which created the Information, Registration and Monitoring System , which makes it possible to control, prevent and prevent the illegal trafficking of wildlife in Colombia.

KEEP READING: