news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4376396.stm
Printable version Call to ban zoo baboon breeding Mother Jill with bald baby Reggie: Picture South West News Agency "Stressed" baboon and son: Photo:SWNS/2dayUK A baboon mother's "over-zealous" grooming of her baby to baldness at a De von zoo is a sign of stress, says an animal rights group. Reggie the hamadryas baboon has had his hair licked and plucked off by hi s mother at Paignton Zoo, it was revealed earlier this month. Now People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has called on the zoo to stop hamadryas baboon breeding. The zoo rejected Peta's call and said the baboons showed no signs of stre ss. Reggie and his mother are two of a 53-strong baboon troop at Paignton. Peta said that Dr Robert Sapolsky, a research associate with the Institut e of Primate Research in Kenya, had in his 26 years of studying wild bab oon populations in East Africa, never seen a mother baboon pluck her bab y bald. "It may be too late for Reggie, his mother and the other baboons in distr ess at Paignton Zoo, but we call on Mr Tonge to prevent the suffering of additional baboons by immediately enacting a breeding ban." Zoo spokesman Phil Knowling responded: "I have no reason to believe we ha ve a problem here.
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