Dortmund (dpa / lnw) - Fluffy fur and big eyes: For years, Rosi was kept illegally in a small bird cage - now the almost blind pygmy slow loris has a new home in Dortmund Zoo. The primate is exploring her new enclosure, the zoo announced on Thursday. This is the end of years of torture in the illegal wildlife trade for the animal. Four pygmy slow lorises now live in the Dortmund rainforest house. Just like Rosi, Flori was illegally brought to Germany. In hand luggage, a smuggler tried to bring the male from Bangkok to Munich in 2015.
The new primate, who was given the name Rosi by her keepers, was accidentally discovered during a police operation in Kassel last year. When the officers wanted to arrest a man, they discovered the pygmy slow loris lady in a covered birdcage in his apartment. Rosi is almost blind - probably because she was fed the wrong diet and too much sugar for years. After an operation, she regained some of her sight.
Their history can only be partially reconstructed. She had probably been illegally brought to Germany via Russia since 2011. Slow lorises, which actually live in the rainforests of Southeast Asia, are among the most frequently smuggled and illegally traded animals in the world, said the Dortmund Zoo.
