Slow lorises are among the most trafficked primates due to social media demand for "cute" pet videos. Addressing this trade is essential for both wild populations and individual animal welfare.
Slow loris welfare in the illegal pet trade involves extreme suffering at every stage. Capture from the wild is traumatic; transport conditions cause high mortality; tooth removal (to prevent their venomous bite from harming owners) is performed without anaesthesia causing severe pain and infection risk; and captive conditions cannot replicate their specialized dietary and environmental needs. Slow lorises in captivity typically die within months to years from nutritional deficiency, stress, or respiratory disease. The animals that survive often show severe psychological damage. The demand driver is largely social media: viral videos portray these animals as enjoying human contact, when in fact the raised-arm posture seen in "tickling" videos is a defensive stress response exposing their venom glands. Education campaigns that explain the suffering behind these videos have proven effective at reducing demand and driving platform-level content removal.