A RESCUE bid to fly 70 monkeys from South America to Monkey World has sparked controversy in Chile.

Animal activists in the South American country fear for their welfare because of the long intercontinental journey of more than 7,250 miles.

Monkey World recently won planning approval from Purbeck District Council for new homes to be built for the capuchin monkeys.

The creatures have spent their lives caged in solitary confinement in a research laboratory in Chile after being bred in captivity there.

But the Dorset park's bid to jet the monkeys across the ocean has upset animal rights activists in South America - the native continent for capuchins.

They say there is a privately-run monkey sanctuary just 25 miles from Santiago, where the capuchins are in Catholic University laboratories.

From the Centro de Rehabilitación y Rescate de Primates at Peñaflor in Chile its director Elba Muñoz López writes: "In South America money is scarce and a lot of it will be spent in sending that huge amount of monkeys to a place that is far away and with a climate that is the opposite from the one the animals are used to."

She added: "It is obviously absurd to expose monkeys who are used to very controlled temperatures and individual cages to travel such a distance under severe temperature variations and stressful conditions."

The Peñaflor centre is home to 145 primates in 10 different species - and already includes 80 capuchin monkeys.

The centre, which is not open to the public, was set up in 1994 by the family of Almazán Muñoz as a refuge for former pets and ex-zoo woolly monkeys.