When Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand received an email from a Bangkok resident worried about a monkey he had seen living in between two walls, he rushed there to find out what was going on.
When Wiek arrived, he spotted a macaque monkey named Joe sandwiched between walls and living in a dark cage.
“I have seen a lot of animal suffering in the last 17 years, but I would say that the condition the monkey was kept in was probably in the ‘top 10’ of most horrible cases,” Wiek said.
The poor monkey had lived nearly his whole life in a 3-foot long “hellhole,” with not even water to survive on. He lived in dirt and feces, and the ground beneath him was a mass of garbage.
When the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand began to dissemble Joe’s prison, they noticed it was filled with rats. The monkey’s owner told WFFT that he had been living like that since 1991, which is an astonishing 25 years of suffering.
The team provided Joe with medical care and discovered he was worse off than they thought.
“Joe was dirty and very weak, as his cage was so small he could not walk or climb at all and his muscle tissue was almost gone,” Wiek wrote. “His teeth were very bad and he was dehydrated.”
Fortunately, after speaking with Joe’s owner (who could not afford to support him), they were able to obtain permission to take Joe home with them. Wiek recalls having mixed feelings about the rescue: “On Tuesday I realised that all that time that I have been living and working in Thailand, this monkey has been in that cage, waiting for someone to rescue him,” he said. “I just wish we would have known earlier.”
“I felt embarrassed to be a human being, seeing what humans again and again do to animals,” Wiek continued. “But at the same time I was feeling proud to be a human, being able to make a positive difference in this horrible case.”
Joe can now live out the next 10 years or so of his life in freedom, as he is on the road to recovery.
“He walks around but is not able to climb yet, too weak and without the experience to do so. We hope he will still have some quality years ahead at our sanctuary,” Wiek said.
If you would like to help Joe, you can make a donation to WFFT here.
[Featured Image Credit: Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand]
Monkey Lived His Whole Life Sandwiched Between Two Walls is an article from: LifeDaily