[7] In the European Union, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary have bans on the keeping of primates.
[11] When the British first began to explore Africa, young monkeys were often captured and taken back on board the ship to entertain sailors.
[19][20] Demand in the U.S. for pet monkeys was so great that in 1955 government officials in Costa Rica expressed concern that it was decimating wild populations there.
"[24] While many people enjoyed owning monkeys in their infancy, they found that the animals become unmanageable — “wild” — upon reaching adolescence.
As a sanctuary founder in Texas stated, his facility can only help "a fraction" of the monkeys who are abused or abandoned: "It’s not the kind of work that there will ever be a solution to.
Terry Pratchett makes use of the distinction in his Discworld novels, in which the Librarian of the Unseen University is an orangutan who gets very violent if referred to as a monkey.
Nkima was the original Cheeta-like character in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels, and in adaptations of the saga to other media, particularly comics.
Tarzan and Cheeta have been repeated across all major popular culture mediums including books, films, television, games and comics.
[29] The books feature a curious pet monkey named George, who is brought from his home in Africa by "The Man with The Yellow Hat" to live with him in a big city.