The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Meet monkey man!

Cops take away his barrel of fun
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/172102p-150122c.html

See related photos:
http://www.nydailynews.com/services/gallery/

By MICHELE McPHEE, RALPH R. ORTEGA and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS


A wanna-be Dr. Dolittle was busted yesterday for turning his tiny 
Manhattan apartment into an urban Animal House.

Orlando Lopez, 26, a veterinary clinic technician, wept as animal 
control officers seized six monkeys, a Great Dane, a Chihuahua, two 
cats and a tarantula named Fang from his Washington Heights studio 
apartment. The only pets that cops let Lopez keep were some fish.

"They're like my kids," Lopez told the Daily News as cops dismantled 
his menagerie. "I'm going to do the best to get all of these animals 
back."

Lopez and a male roommate named Simon slept in the kitchen while 
their animal pals had the main room to themselves.

When Lopez opened the door of his fifth-floor apartment at 34-64 
Hillside Ave., near Dyckman St., cops saw the monkeys swinging in 
three 5-by-4-foot wrought-iron cages.

"It was bizarre," said Animal Control Officer Luis Lebron.

The discovery of Lopez's zoo comes just six months after a 425-pound 
tiger and a 3-foot alligator were seized from a Harlem apartment. 
Those animals were discovered after Ming the tiger mauled his owner.

Lopez's monkeys seemed to dread being separated from him, as two of 
them clung to his waist. "They're scared," said Lopez, who was 
slapped with a summons for harboring seven illegal animals: the 
monkeys and the tarantula.

Lebron said the animals, who were taken to a Nassau County animal 
sanctuary, appeared to be healthy.

Lopez said he and his pets have lived in the apartment for four 
years. He said he purchased most of the monkeys from Florida breeders.

"I kept them to myself," Lopez said of his monkeys - two capuchins, 
two marmosets and two squirrel monkeys.

But Maximo Sanchez, a porter in Lopez's building, said neighbors had 
complained of the smell of monkey urine seeping into the halls. 
"People knew he had monkeys, but what were they going to do?" Sanchez 
said. "The monkeys never went out. They were never visible, but you 
could smell them."

The monkeys - Mandy, Michael, Marley, Chucky, Lulu and Belle - 
appeared to live in friendly surroundings. Lopez even filled the 
walls with photos of him and his pets, including one of him with a 
monkey dressed in clothes.

He said the monkeys liked to watch TV and listen to the radio, which 
was mostly tuned to Z-100 FM - a station whose rush-hour show is 
called the Morning Zoo.

The monkeys, weighing 1 to 5 pounds and ranging in age from 3 to 9 
years old, never caused a big ruckus, except for switching the lights 
on and off and harassing the cats by pulling their tails, Lopez said.

Friends and co-workers at the West Side Veterinary Center on W. 83rd 
St., where Lopez has worked for about a year, were sympathetic.

"Orlando is caring and conscientious about taking care of animals," 
said a veterinarian at the center, who spoke on condition of 
anonymity.

Pedro Martinez, 26, described his pal as a "great guy."

"He gave the monkeys a home," said Martinez. "He wasn't breeding or 
selling them. He just loved them."

With Kerry Burke

Originally published on March 10, 2004
--
Carrie McLaren
Editor, Stay Free!
www.stayfreemagazine.org
www.illegal-art.org
718.398.9324