It weighs no more than 320g.
The Val-d'Oise firefighters were asked last Friday for a somewhat special intervention.
An unusual animal had indeed been spotted wandering in the courtyard of a school rue de Montigny in Argenteuil, closed during these school holidays.
Dispatched to the scene, animal risk teams from Sdis 95 then discovered a marmoset with a white forelock.
The tiny primate endemic to Brazil, certainly escaped from a private home or abandoned, was able to be gently captured by these specialists.
A piece of apple placed in a cage and a lot of patience thus made it possible to attract the animal before it was closed behind him without a hitch.
The animal entrusted to an animal park
The quadruped was then taken care of by the municipal police of Argenteuil, also present on the spot alongside the services of the departmental direction for the protection of populations (DDP), to then be entrusted to the good care of an animal park.
Beneath its air of plush with its long white tufts above the ears, the marmoset is nonetheless a wild animal that has no vocation to be found either in Europe or alone.
In its natural habitat, it lives in groups and travels despite its small size nearly a kilometer a day in the trees to feed.
A compulsory certificate of competence to hold it
In France, his detention is also extremely supervised.
“The white-tufted marmoset is one of the primates most often held by individuals, but most of the time illegally.
Many are trafficked.
A certificate of capacity is compulsory to have such an animal which must be declared and microchipped”, specifies the Exotic Reserve of Blérancourt, refuge of many primates seized by justice or abandoned.
Because exotic animals do not escape the sad trend.
In the Val-d'Oise in particular, Sdis 95 specialists are increasingly called upon to recover it.
Among them, many parrots of all sizes including Arras.