About International Primate Rescue UK - a registered charity offering volunteering opportunities with monkeys, marmosets, tamarins, capuchins and other non-human primates.

The UK organization was established in 2006 with the principal object "to relieve the suffering of non-human primates in any part of the world which are in need of care and attention and in particular to rescue and provide care and treatment for such primates that are unwanted, abandoned, neglected or ill-treated". We are now registered as a charity: further details of our registration and objectives are set out here.

International Primate Rescue began in March 1996 as the Marmoset Welfare Foundation in South Africa, where founder Sue Gale had been caring for primates since 1990. Its sanctuary, the first of its kind in South Africa, received its first monkey, an eight-month old Common Marmoset named "Cheeky", in April 1996. After a report on national TV in South Africa, the sanctuary was inundated with requests to receive problem monkeys; by September 2001 it was obliged to relocate to a larger property in order to accommodate the swelling numbers of Common and Black-eared Marmosets, Tamarins and Squirrel Monkeys. In December 2001 IPR was approached to help in the rescue of a badly abused Patas Monkey in Israel: Iris became the first international rescue case and was flown from Israel to the sanctuary in South Africa in February 2002. The rescue was widely reported, and IPR has since received numerous requests to assist in international rescues.

The practical objective of the UK organization in the near future will be to support the South African organization and in particular the establishment of the new sanctuary at Kromdraai, near Pretoria, which currently cares for over seventy exotic primates, many of which arrive with behavioural problems and require rehabilitation. The demand for the service provided by the sanctuary is growing relentlessly: it receives a constant stream of requests to rescue homeless primates in South Africa and abroad. We will need to expand the sanctuary facilities at Kromdraai and complete the move from our old sanctuary at Polokwane. We will also be looking to establish further sanctuaries in the future. Expansion will also enable us to offer shelter to a greater range of primates than now: the shortage of suitable accommodation means that apes offered to IPR have had to be turned away. For further details about how we work at the sanctuaries and the rehabilitation that we provide, click here.

The new sanctuary offers exciting opportunities for volunteers, who are able to play an active part in caring for the primates and with building further facilities at the sanctuary. In future, we also aim to offer a training centre for our local and international volunteers.

All of this needs your support!