From NPR.

A coalition of accredited zoos and animal welfare groups are seeking support in Congress for a proposed measure that they say would help slow the brutal pet primate trade in the United States.

For every monkey, chimpanzee and other primate smuggled into the U.S. to be an exotic pet, advocates say countless others are killed in brutal poaching raids as the animals try to protect their infants.

"What happens is a number of adults are shot out of the trees in order for the poachers to get hold of the babies," Colleen Kinzley vice president of animal care, conservation and research at the Oakland Zoo in the San Francisco Bay area, tells NPR, saying they "literally rip the babies out of the arms of the dead and dying mothers.”

The proposed Captive Primate Safety Act aims to make it illegal in all 50 states to privately own and breed these animals.