Open Letter to President Lương Cường: Urgently Implement Justice, Ethics, and Humane Policy Reform in Wildlife Confiscations, Including the Cases of Kaka, Mit, and Puka

Your Excellency,

It is with deep disappointment and urgency that I address you today. For one year and two months, we have sought your attention, as well as that of your government, regarding the abuse of power through the application of a biased traditional law that fails to account for the recent reality of happy, fulfilled macaques living not as mere pets, but as members of human families, in harmony, reflecting a significant shift in human–animal relationships; and regarding the tragedy of Kaka, Mit, and Puka. Yet throughout this long and painful period, we have been met only with silence ,, and silencing.

During this time, three beloved famous companion monkeys — Kaka, Mit, and Puka — have been unjustly confiscated under the authority of Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) and transferred to Bến En National Park, where they have endured trauma, misery, and loss. Puka died from depression shortly after confiscation. Mit remains alive, but languishes in a cage, pitiful, dirty, miserable, hungry, surviving only on charity food. And Kaka was released onto a barren forested island, where she showed nothing but distress, disinterested in exploring the forest and constantly longing to return home, before being secretly and cruelly removed under ENV's intervention in circumstances that remain neither transparent nor accountable, without informing her father figure (whom they knew was visiting weekly. This removal appears intended not only to hurt the owner who has sacrificed so much to attend to his monkey's emotional and physical needs in their exile, but also to silence public complaints and to conceal the undeniable reality of Kaka's continuous yearning to return home, and her unbroken attachment to her father figure despite the abusive and fatal restrictions imposed on him in an effort to sever their bond (no feeding, no touching, not even approaching).

What began as a supposed act of "conservation" has instead resulted in cruelty, negligence, exploitation, and irreversible harm.

The urgency of this case is not only about Kaka and Mit, but about making ethics a legal duty. Vietnam must require a behavioral and welfare assessment prior to any confiscation decision, to distinguish between abused animals and those who are happy and thriving under human care. Happy monkeys must not be confiscated. Without this safeguard, the law becomes a weapon in the hands of bureaucrats with vested interest, who act not for the welfare of animals, but for institutional interests of fame (exploiting Kaka's notoriety), money (soliciting donations), power (asserting dominance over citizens, even oppression), or prejudice (enforcing biased misconceptions like "macaques are not pets," despite abundant counter-evidence). In such cases, the law ceases to serve justice or compassion; it becomes an instrument of cruelty and corruption.

The Confiscation and Its Consequences

Puka: Once perfectly healthy and happy at home, he died in captivity from separation-induced depression, a preventable tragedy. His family could have saved him had he been allowed to return.

Mit: After months of silence, it is now clear she is still alive, but wasting away in Bến En's cage. She is dirty, visibly depressed, and malnourished, clinging only to survival through scraps provided by charity. She has been denied family visits, affection, and dignity.

Kaka: Released into a barren forest patch, she rejected companionship with another monkey, showing behaviors of sadness and disappointment — self-scratching, withdrawal, loss of vitality, sore legs, and a fungal disease on her tail — as her repeated attempts to return home with her owner were denied, and even her search for solace and food from him was cruelly restricted. Far from rehabilitation, this was abandonment. She survived only through her owner Mr. Ngọc's visits, his provision of food, and his clandestine treatment of her fungal infection. Without him, she would already have perished, as all other monkeys released into that barren ecosystem have done. Ben En has been releasing monkeys for years, yet none of them has been spotted in the forest. The monkey (most probably newly released) that appeared once, never appeared ever again. Had they been surviving, they would have multiplied and a troop would have been spotted or even heard during a search in the deep forest. Eventually, Bến En secretly removed Kaka, under ENV's appeal — a disappearance shrouded in deception and cruelty, disregarding her emotional bond to her owner and her intense need and burning desire to escape her exile and return home to him, where she can be happy and where she is offered a much better life, filled with privilege, joy, love, filial piety, playfulness, purpose, and interest. Being forced to live where we don't want to live, deprived of everything we hold dear, makes things worse, not better, and makes forgetting impossible, which contributes to further suffering and withdrawal, especially for monkeys who, like us, have the ability to remember.

The family: Health complications due to stress and pain induce by their family members' loss (Kaka, Mit and Puka), that required hospitalization.

These outcomes were not accidental. They were the result of choices made by ENV and Bến En, choices marked by negligence, lack of transparency, and disregard for animal welfare.

Hypocrisy and Abuse of Power

While ENV claims to protect wildlife, they targeted a thriving family while they are supposed to focus on countless monkeys languishing in chains, cages, or garbage-strewn streets, on taking care of street monkeys who are dying prematurely from hunger, on regulating poaching and black markets and on improving the lives of farmed monkeys. Please be reminded that the law is not enforced nationally. Its enforcement relies only on reported individual cases, among which ENV claims to select the most urgent cases of abuse. Yet instead, they selected Kaka and Mit, two of the happiest monkeys on earth! This is no longer law enforcement, but selective enforcement, an abuse in itself, and is punishable by the law!

They have used confiscation not as conservation, but as punishment, misusing the law to humiliate, torment, and sever bonds between sentient beings and their human families.

They have profited from Kaka's gentle, tender, and domestic nature, turning her into a tourist attraction, while falsely accusing her family of exploitation (using the prejudice that 'all monkey owners exploit their monkeys') simply because they share their joyful life with her on YouTube.

The owner has been cruelly mistreated, promises unkept, already-rarely allowed visitations were canceled at the last moment, and Kaka was secretly removed without any prior notification, all while knowing that the owner was to sacrifice his day to come visit, paying high full tourist fees, taxi fares, and food costs in vain. He was labeled with names such as "criminal," "exploiter," and "violator," merely for having lovingly cared for his two monkeys and for sharing their daily joy and harmonious relationship on YouTube. Meanwhile, ENV, the real criminals who caused the animals' suffering and death are ironically called "protectors." Them who exploited Kaka's fame are praised as "conservationists." And them the same ones who violated every principle of animal rights, human rights, transparency, and accountability are paradoxically the very ones judging an honest and kind citizen in the name of the law.

This is not conservation. This is bureaucratic corruption disguised as conservation. It is law weaponized against compassion and ethics.

Legal and Ethical Violations

The confiscations of Kaka, Mit, and Puka violate not only animal ethics, but also:

International animal welfare standards, including the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare and the 1978 Universal Declaration of Animal Rights, which prohibit arbitrary confiscations that cause emotional harm to animals.

Vietnamese law (Decree 06/2019/ND-CP and Penal Code Articles 242, 360), which condemns negligence causing suffering or death of endangered species.

Human rights principles (ICCPR, Article 17), which forbid arbitrary interference in family life. These monkeys were family members, not possessions, and their forced separation was a violation of family integrity.

Above all, it violates the principle that freedom is not geography, but choice. Kaka and Mit were free at home, feeling belonging and not captivity — loved, fulfilled, with access to gardens, forests, beaches, restaurants, and family life. In the forest, they are prisoners held hostage against their will, exiled, feeling captive and forced into misery.

Global Outcry and Precedents

The tragedy of Kaka and Mit has shocked millions of viewers worldwide, who have followed their story, signed petitions, and compared their case to international precedents:

Australia (2024): Molly the magpie returned to her family after public outcry.

Cambodia (2023): For their safety, four confiscated monkeys reunited with their owners after months of captivity.

Vietnam (2023): Bibi, a stump-tail macaque, returned in a poor condition to her owner after confiscation. Abu was allowed to return to his owner in very poor condition after being separated, while his monkey sister Stella died in the forest where she had been 'released' (dumped) by the authorities.

Brazil (2013, 2025): Chico the monkey and Loro the parrot returned to their families after unjust confiscation.

Each of these cases shows that return is not only possible, but necessary when the emotional well-being of animals is at stake. The European Union to which Vietnam is signatory recognizes animals as sentient beings, and therefore they deserve full attention and protection in all policies affecting their welfare.

Moreover, it must be understood that channels of fulfilled animals thriving with their human family, such as Monkey Kaka channel, play an educational role that reduces, not increases, the demand for monkeys. They demonstrate the standards of what a happy, fulfilled monkey looks like, as well as the extraordinary dedication, the level of care, understanding, and attention required. This actually reduces, and not increase, the demand for pet monkeys, because potential buyers would realize they cannot provide the same care and time that Mr. Ngoc's family gives to keep their animals happy. Owners who keep caged monkeys might surrender them to 'sanctuaries' upon realizing their monkeys are unhappy, simply by being able to compare them to Kaka and Mit. Channels like Monkey Kaka are therefore extremely valuable and should be protected, not punished, as they discourage casual acquisition and exploitation. Mikayla Raines who successfully raised rescued foxes in a way that made them truly fulfilled and bonded with them so harmoniously, testified that many fox owners called her to surrender their foxes when they realized through watching her channel, that their foxes aren't fulfilled and that they are not able as owners, to provide like Mikayla, the care, time and resources required to raise them fulfilled and thriving.
At the same time, such channels foster empathy and respect for animals by making their emotions, intelligence, and individuality visible to the public. They inspire millions of people to love the specie, therefore trigger a desire to protect them and protect the nature. "We protect whom we love", as the proverb says. In this way, Monkey Kaka and similar platforms are not threats to wildlife welfare, but valuable allies in raising awareness and decreasing reckless demand.

For more information, a detailed document has been published online that provides the full story, analyzes the behavioral and ethical implications, addresses scientifically common prejudices and misconceptions, and explains why confiscating happy animals is harmful while skilled owners like Mr. Ngoc should be licensed and protected rather than persecuted: https://philarchive.org/archive/CHBWMB

Our Requests

In the name of justice, human rights, animal welfare, species protection, and shared humanity, we urgently demand:

Immediate intervention: Safely return Kaka and Mit to their human family before further harm occurs.

Legal reform: Amend wildlife confiscation practices to respect the emotional bonds of animals and prevent future tragedies, and to prevent that the law be used as a weapon to harm by institutions with vested interests.

And if possible, Accountability: ENV and Bến En must answer for the death of Puka which they lied about, the suffering of Kaka, Mit and Puka, and the secret removal of Kaka to an undisclosed place.

Compensation: For the suffering inflicted on the animals, their owner, and millions of supporters worldwide.

Final Appeal

Your Excellency,
One soul lost is already too many. Puka has been lost. Kaka and Mit are still suffering, other monkeys' lives have been previously destroyed. The same to future happy monkeys should not be allowed.

Vietnam can choose to stand with ethics, justice, and humanity — to correct this tragedy before it deepens further — or to continue down a path of cruelty, corruption, and silence.

Please act. Please remember that history will judge. And please do not let Kaka and Mit become victims of bureaucracy rather than examples of justice.

Respectfully,
Elige Chbat / Team Kaka
Paris

Abstract
The crux of the issue is this: macaques like Kaka and Mit are not merely pets. They have consciously evolved, within the context of loving and stable human families, into beings that exhibit behavioral patterns indicating fulfillment levels far beyond those of wild macaques and far beyond those commonly seen in captivity. They represent novel and recent profiles that show behavioral signs of emotional security, psychological fulfillment, and even an evolution of consciousness grounded in attachment, purpose, and love, rather than traditional behaviors based on insecurity and instincts. Yet, the law continues to presume that any macaque in human care is being abused, especially when authority is given to NGOs with vested interest, as it can be used as a weapon to serve these institutional interests, even committing crimes in the name of "protection" and in the name of "the law". This presumption has directly harmed these three individuals, as well as others with similar profiles who have previously been confiscated or who may be at risk of confiscation in the future. While the law is not enforced nationally but only sporadically, whereby one NGO supposedly selecting for confiscation the most urgent individual cases of abuse among reported cases, Kaka and Mit, two of the few happiest monkeys on earth, have been selected! Despite full awareness of the detrimental consequences that such a confiscation would have on profiles like theirs, and despite witnessing these consequences unfold, the authorities remained insensitive and unresponsive. Despite repeated pleas for more than a year, our requests for intervention have been met only with silence and silencing. We respectfully request that President Lương Cường consider returning Kaka and Mit to their one and only desired family with whom they can be happy, licensing and protecting skilled and devoted owners like Mr. Ngoc, ensure that happy animals are not needlessly confiscated, and reform wildlife management policies to prioritize the welfare and emotional well-being of the animals under human care.