While flipping through an old horror comic from 1967, I stumbled across the ad mentioned in the thread title.
The ad goes on to say that “YOU can be the happiest boy on your block with your own LIVE BABY SQUIRREL MONKEY” and that $19.95 and a “small express charge” paid to the delivery man will ensure safe delivery.
So…could a kid really order a live monkey from a comic book back in 1967? To be delivered to his doorstep? Legally? Really?
Pet animal laws have changed a LOT in the last few decades. There are a TON more restrictions now (necessary ones) than there have ever been before. You can’t just go out and catch a native animal and make it a pet, for instance. And you need a special permit to keep most primates, like a monkey. (Although I’m not sure if this state or federal; bird laws tend to be federal because birds tend to cross state lines.)
But it doesn’t surprise me at all that as recently as 1967 those regulations weren’t in place. I worked in the pet industry for around 8 years, straddling the 80s and 90s, and just during that period the legal availability of a TON of pet species changed. We went from selling a huge range of turtles species, from all over the world, for example, for around $15 apiece, to selling just a few species for $50 to $100 apiece, due to changes in regulations governing the collection or import of reptiles. Just for one example.
I had a family member with a pet monkey in that era. It shat on him a lot.
When I was a kid in the 70’s, I remember my mom telling me once she always wanted a green spider monkey. I remember thinking that was a pretty exotic sort of dream pet for a cave woman like her. Now I realize just a few years before, it would have been a pretty easy thing to do.
Not even two years ago, the lady we bought our pet hedgehog from was also selling a capuchin monkey. The price was either 5 or 6 thousand dollars, which is quite heftier than the 1960’s era counterpart, but that’s inflation for you. I didn’t actually inquire about all the paperwork involved.
At the time, I stated that if I ever won the lottery, a pet monkey would be on the top of my list of things to buy. Now that I have a 4 month old baby, I’m thinking of pushing that a few (hundred) notches down.
(I miss Homer :()
Exactly. It would be redundant.
Do you have a license for that minkey?