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On Monday afternoon, Darwin checked into his new home at Sunderland, Ont.’s Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary.

“We were relieved that he was coming to a place where his needs are going to be met first,” sanctuary founder Sherri Delaney told the

Post

on Monday.

Meanwhile a woman describing herself as the monkey’s “mother” pleaded for his return during an interview with Toronto’s CityNews.

“I know he cannot live without me,” said real estate agent Yasmin Nakhuda. “And everyone who knows Darwin can vouch for this. He needs his mother like a child needs his mother.”

Although she did not doubt that Darwin’s owners “loved him very much,” Ms. Delaney asked people “to think before they do this.”

“These animals are not meant as pets. They’re not meant to take the place of a child,” she said. “Did he need to be in a coat? No, he didn’t. Did he need to be in a diaper? No.”

At the sanctuary, which currently holds 22 primates, Darwin will be paired up with a “motherly” monkey.

A troop animal that requires constant contact and stimulation, Darwin will live among two Japanese macaques and two more rhesus monkeys, who are soon expected to arrive at the sanctuary from lab situations in the Greater Toronto Area.

Throughout the weekend, Darwin’s story made headlines from the Mediterranean island of Malta to Melbourne, Australia, and beyond — arguably becoming the most internationally recognized news story to come out of Canada since the June search for alleged dismemberment killer Luka Magnotta.