Monkey smuggling

Smuggling has been an issue in New Zealand several times. Mostly it’s things like gold, money or alcohol.
But in January, 1942, Wellington had several cases of monkey smuggling.
The monkeys, long tailed torque macaques - were brought in by sailors who took them into town inside their shirts, then proceeded to sell them for £1 each in pubs around town.
What is not known is how many there were.
At the time, while they were not illegal, there were quite a number of rules about having exotic animals as pets and they were expected to be legally imported.
The macaques were native to Sri Lanka and were apparently bought there and taken on to a ship that ended up in Wellington.
A man in Oriental Bay bought two and a Khandallah man bought another.
But there were others and some escaped.
It caused a fuss because several of the monkeys were spotted around Wellington. Two were seen in Boswell Tce and Austin St.
Another was seen with a man near Parliament on a string.
One family in Wellington were just sitting down to breakfast when a monkey strolled in through their door and helped itself to some food, much to the surprise of the family.
This led to panicked calls to the Wellington Zoo as it was thought that the group of monkeys had managed to escape.
The police got involved and there was a hunt across Wellington to find the furry escapers.
At the time the curator for the zoo was Charles Jack Cutler who thought the whole thing was funny.
He confirmed that none of the monkeys at the zoo had escaped and said that “Personally, I think that anyone who can put up with a pet monkey in the house for more than a week deserves to be allowed to keep it.”
It also prompted an investigation by Internal Affairs as a person who wanted a monkey needed to obtain a permit.
A warrant from the Minister of Internal Affairs personally must also be produced and the purchaser has to sign an agreement that the monkey will be kept in a case with a concrete floor and iron bars sufficiently small to prevent them or any of its progeny, however small, from escaping.
Unfortunately the stories die away before there was any resolution and we have no idea what happened to the monkeys or if they were ever all caught or confiscated.
Cutler, who was also the keeper for the elephant Nellikutha until her death, had been born in 1905 and spent many years at the zoo, at one point even living there.
He died on January 13, 1967, and was cremated at Karori Cemetery.
Photo by Carl Wong.​