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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Six monkeys rescued from "wanna-be Dr. Dolittle"
  • Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 12:14:50 -0500


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



  • [monkeywire] Six monkeys rescued from "wanna-be Dr. Dolittle", Carrie McLaren, 03/10/2004

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