Eight rare monkeys, including one pregnant female, have been stolen from Symbio Wildlife Park at Helensburgh.There are grave fears for the safety of the monkeys after thieves used the cover of darkness and wet, windy weather to steal them from their purpose-built home on Sunday night.Devastated management and staff believe the thieves knew exactly what they were after when they broke into the new exhibit.
VIDEO: See footage of the rare monkeys Had you visited the stolen monkeys? Click here to send us your photos The Radnidge family was distraught yesterday when zookeeper Kylie Elliot discovered the four pygmy marmoset monkeys and four endangered cotton-top tamarins missing at 8.20am.John Radnidge said three locks were broken."Clearly these people knew what they were doing," he said."They just cut through a power cable so there was no light. The only light in their exhibit was the heat lamp."We are all pretty bloody devastated. We offer the public the chance to see the world's most endangered wildlife here in their own backyard and to have someone steal two vital species is just gut-wrenching."I don't know where to go from here. To have them snatched from our care is devastating. We feel a sense of responsibility with all our animals."Mr Radnidge said the small monkeys would have been very difficult to catch in the dark."These animals don't just sit there, they will scatter. They would have had to chase them around to catch them."Mr Radnidge fears the thieves may be involved in a smuggling racket involving exotic animals.He said Mogo Zoo was targeted in 2004 when one cotton-top tamarin was taken.They were an extremely rare species, with only 400 left in the wild.It was hard to put a value on what the pygmy marmosets and cotton-top tamarins were worth because they could not be replaced."They were part of an international breeding program," Mr Radnidge said. "They are playing such an important role in each species' survival. This just breaks your heart and breaks your soul. I can't understand or comprehend why people would take these animals from such a safe haven."No private collector can possibly provide what we provide with constant care, attention and a specialised diet."The pygmy marmosets only arrived from Perth Zoo last year and are the smallest monkeys in the world, weighing just 112g and grow to a height of 13cm.Margaret Radnidge said her son Matthew had worked hard for years to secure the rare monkeys."With the pygmy marmosets we were only the fourth place in Australia to have them ... and we had four of them," Matthew said."We probably had 20 per cent of the population here. That is 20 per cent of the national breeding program gone."This is probably the biggest zoo theft I have ever heard of in Australia."Everyone at Symbio is pleading for the return of the tiny monkeys, who require a special diet.Some of their food has to be shipped in from Perth.Matthew Radnidge believes that Bella, the female tamarin that gave birth on New Year's Day, is pregnant again.He said one of the male pygmy monkeys had recently been lined up to breed with two females from another zoo.The theft will not stop the Radnidge family from opening a $500,000 exhibit for two extremely rare Sumatran tiger cubs in August, but Mr Radnidge said the zoo would need to find a way to cover the costs of introducing more security.
