This is such a fun article!  I’ve never really been tempted to have a pet chimp, but I can understnat the attraction to primates.  Anyways, this is most interesting as  a good example of journalism: it’s well-written, non-judgemental, and tells a great story:

A primate involves a much greater commitment than a cat or dog — or it should — because primates are social animals that cannot be left alone for long, and that live for decades: baboons for up to 45 years in captivity, chimps for 60 to 70. Once they have hit puberty, primates can become unpredictable and difficult to control. An adult chimp has seven times the strength of a man, Ms. Truitt says, but even a 24-pound monkey has the reflexes and agility to take down a man.

More fundamentally, Ms. Truitt believes, even the smallest monkeys are wild animals that do not belong in people’s homes.

But many prospective owners are badly informed, and, encountering adorable, docile baby primates with an eerie similarity to human infants, they find it difficult to resist.

Animal dealers, Ms. Truitt says, know that.

“The key to the trade is that these animals have to be removed at birth from the mother, put in diapers, put on a bottle and sold before they start depreciating — which they do, quicker than a Cadillac,” Ms. Truitt says. “By the age of 3, maybe 5 or 7, they reach adolescence and their hormones are telling them to do anything but take commands from humans. They are interested in dominating whatever social group they find themselves in. If it’s a human home, they often go after children first, then teenagers, then mom, and by the time they get to dad, we usually get the call.”