How black market traders and corrupt officials are flouting international law and acting with impunity, devastating endangered species populations

A frame from a home video shot in Kuwait. It shows a gibbon attacking a baby chimpanzee while an infant orangutan looks on.

A worrying culture is spreading across the Middle East – one that threatens endangered species in Asia and Africa, and shamelessly breaks international laws. The Ol Pejeta-initiated Project to End Great Ape Slavery (PEGAS) has found that more and more wealthy Middle Easterners have taken to keeping great apes and big cats as status symbols. Almost all of these animals have been captured as infants from the wild, and been bought online. What's more, PEGAS has found evidence that several officials appointed to uphold the international laws put in place to protect these animals are the very people involved in the illegal trafficking.

The photographs in this article have been collected from online sites open to the public.

An orphan chimpanzee in Quatar

PEGAS aims to developing a better understanding of the illegal trade in great apes, and campaigns for current international agreements to be enforced and adhered to. The Project has been investigating internet sites in Middle Eastern countries that advertise apes for sale, or display photos and videos of great apes as pets. In almost all cases the apes are being traded illegally, as all great ape species are listed under Appendix I of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) – which prohibits commercial trade.

This tiny orangutan trafficked to Turkey can’t be more than a few weeks old

The demand for great apes as pets, entertainment props, or for display in private zoos in the Middle East is fuelling the large scale wild capture of infants in the forests of West Africa and Indonesia. In order to capture young chimpanzees, hunters kill the mothers and often the rest of the troop as well. Many of these infants die en route to their selling destination, as a result of rough handling, cramped transport conditions, stress and dehydration.

Three infant chimpanzees captured in Ghana are held in a container prior to being shipped to the Middle East

Using the internet as a marketing platform, young chimpanzees are then sold for large sums of money. As infants, they are unaggressive, impressionable, and desperate for love after such significant trauma – tragically, this is their biggest selling point.

Newly arrived baby chimpanzees often become children’s pets, as here in Egypt

PEGAS has found evidence of baby chimpanzees being dressed up in diapers, baby clothes and make up, being made to smoke shisha pipes and cigarettes, driving golf carts, and even playing with lion cubs. As chimpanzees get older, they become aggressive and incredibly strong. When they lose their appeal as cute, cuddly pets, they are either permanently locked in a cage, dumped at a local zoo, or killed.

A baby chimpanzee in Kuwait decorated with garish cosmetics

PEGAS is campaigning for the local authorities in these countries to do more to control the illicit import of these great apes. It is also appealing to CITES to use the enforcement powers it has to sanction countries that ignore the Articles of the Convention and relevant resolutions. In one Egyptian case where an orphan chimpanzee was successfully seized, PEGAS reached out to the Egyptian CITES office with an offer to relocate the chimpanzee to Ol Pejeta's Sweetwaters Sanctuary - one of the few remaining PASA-approved great ape sanctuaries in Africa. There was no response from CITES. What's more, PEGAS is uncovering increasing evidence that corrupt national CITES officials in several countries are deeply involved in the trafficking.

Little Doody was seized in Cairo Airport, bound for Kuwait. He was taken to the Giza Zoo where he survives in a barren cage. PEGAS offered to relocate him to Sweetwaters in Ol Pejeta, but the Egyptian CITES office did not respond to the offer