Gibbons are highly threatened across Southeast Asia by habitat loss and the pet trade. Mothers are killed to capture infants, which are sold as pets or used in tourist photo opportunities across Thailand and other countries.
Gibbon infants that witness the killing of their mothers experience acute traumatic stress. Pet-kept gibbons develop stereotypic behaviours, self-mutilation, and social deficits from isolation and inadequate care. Tourist photo gibbons are kept in conditions of extreme deprivation between performances and are sometimes sedated or have teeth removed. Rehabilitation of former pet gibbons requires years of specialist care before release to the wild is possible.