James "Jim" Michael Cronin MBE (15 November 1951–17 March 2007) was the founder in 1987 of Monkey World in Dorset, England, a sanctuary for abused and neglected primates. He was widely acknowledged as an international expert in the rescue and rehabilitation of abused primates, and in the enforcement of international treaties aimed at protecting them from illegal trade and experimentation.
Cronin was awarded an honorary MBE by Queen Elizabeth II i...
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James "Jim" Michael Cronin MBE (15 November 1951–17 March 2007) was the founder in 1987 of Monkey World in Dorset, England, a sanctuary for abused and neglected primates. He was widely acknowledged as an international expert in the rescue and rehabilitation of abused primates, and in the enforcement of international treaties aimed at protecting them from illegal trade and experimentation.
Cronin was awarded an honorary MBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006 for services to animal welfare.
Cronin was born in Yonkers, New York, of Italian-Irish parents, the son of a union official. After leaving high school, he had a number of jobs in the U.S. before becoming a keeper at Bronx Zoo in the 1970s, where he discovered that he wanted to work with animals. In 1980, he moved to Kent in the UK to work in John Aspinall's zoo.
In 1987, Cronin leased a 65-acre (26 ha) pig farm near Wool, Dorset, after hearing about a group of nine baby chimps being drugged and used as props by photographers on a...
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