Steve Smit, South Africa’s “Monkey Man,” has died

Steve Smit, known around KwaZulu-Natal as the 'Monkey Man,' died August 12th after a battle with cancer. For thirty years he rescued vervet monkeys that had been shot, electrocuted, hit by cars, or caught in wire, founding Monkey Helpline in 1995 with partner Carol Booth, which became a full-time unpaid occupation for both.

Before that, Smit spent roughly 25 years in South Africa's intelligence services after joining the police to avoid military conscription, later founding FALCON, the country's first animal-rights organization, in 1985. He campaigned against elephant culling, vivisection, and the ivory trade, helping prompt a review that suspended culling in Kruger National Park in 1995, and argued that individual animals deserved protection regardless of their species' conservation status.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.