Injured male monkeys: To rescue or not!

Measured against the normally frenetic rate of rescues that have characterised the first seven months of this year, August, with the exception of the last three days, has actually been a relatively quiet month for the Monkey Helpine rescue team. Not that we have been idle - rescues have still kept us busy every day but a high number of calls were about male Vervets injured during fights, and most of these did not result in an attempt to capture of the animal concerned. What we do when we receive any call about a Vervet who might need rescuing, is ask the caller a number of pertinent questions. For example: Where exactly is the monkey? Is it an adult or baby monkey, and what is the size and gender of the monkey? Is the animal alone or is the troop around? What is it about the monkey that concerns the caller (if possible, describe the injury)? Is the monkey bleeding? Is the monkey alert? Is the monkey moving easily or with difficulty? Do there appear to be any broken limbs? How long has the monkey been around? Is the monkey reacting to any food being offered? ... and so on! Obviously the range of questions is adapted according to the answers given by the caller, which also determine how we respond to the call.

In the case of male monkeys we can determine fairly accurately from the answers received whether the injury is from a fight with another monkey. If we decide that this is the case, and also feel that he can recover without our intervention, and that the injuries will not debiliate him to the extent that he cannot defend himself against, or if necessary escape from, attackers then we will usually not go out and attempt a rescue. We explain our reasoning to the caller and ensure that the caller understands and is comfortable with our decision. However, if necessary we will respond immediately and attempt to capture the animal. We realise that every time we capture an injured male Vervet that we might be neutralising the effort he has put into defending his position and status in the troop and territory. After all, he might be injured but he has been victorius, and then we come along, capture him and undo all his hard work. In his absence the defeated male can walk into the troop unapposed and possibly even have entrenched himself by the time the recovered male is released back to his troop. So an understanding of Vervet troop society and dynamics is a crucially important aspect of rescuing. The decision to remove, even for a very short time, any male monkey from his territory, is one not lightly taken!

In most cases we decide to go and view the situation for ourselves and only then make a decision to rescue or not after we have seen the animal concerned. Wherever possible we make use of our network of rescue assistants to either go and rescue the animal if they can, or assess its condition and advise us wherther a rescue is necessary or not, or to monitor the monkey until we arrive to carry out the rescue.

Fortunately, most of the injured male monkeys called in during August will recover without our intervention. And it is always easier for us to make this judgement call when the monkey is a regular visitor to the caller's home. Then we ask them to monitor the animal and notify us if he appears to be struggling to recover. We tell them what signs to look out for. If they do call us again out of concern or uncertainty about the animal, we will go and observe him and make our decision about whether or not to capture him. Alternatively we call back later in the day, or the next day, and for as long as we think it necessary to find out how the monkey is doing.

As for the last three days of August, read about it in the next posting!

The Monkey Helpline: Who we are and what we do!

One of the privileges that goes with living in the eastern and north eastern regions of South Africa is that we also have Vervet monkeys living around our homes, schools, parks and even our factories. And with the presence of monkeys we also have mixed emotions about them. But love them or hate them, even be indifferent to them, they are here to stay IF we can educate and enlighten enough people to care about who monkeys really are!

Those people who dislike or fear monkeys are directly, and indirectly, responsible for the unwarranted bad press they get and also most of the terrible suffering they endure every day.

So what are we, the Monkey Helpline, based in Westville near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, doing for people and the Vervet monkeys?

To start with, we devote much of our time to educating people about the reasons why the monkeys are here, why monkeys behave the way they do, the things people should do or not do when monkeys are around, and how to humanely keep monkeys away from those places where they are not welcome. Just knowing that monkeys will NOT attack and bite people, and that they DON’T carry rabies, is enough to change antagonism and fear into tolerance and appreciation in many cases.

We also run a rescue operation and a high care unit. We rescue an average of three monkeys every two days, and their injuries range from wounds sustained during fights with other monkeys, dog bites, being run over by motor vehicles, electrocution, being snared, trapped or poisoned, and being shot with pellet guns, catapults and firearms. Many are babies who are orphaned or injured when mother monkeys are attacked. Over eighty percent of the monkeys we rescue, irrespective of the reason why, have got pellets lodged in their bodies. Pellets cause terrible pain, suffering and a lingering death, and no person, adult or child should ever shoot monkeys with a pellet gun. As the only dedicated monkey rescue project in KwaZulu-Natal, the Monkey Helpline is available to do rescues 24 hours a day, every day! On any given day we are treating between ten and twelve monkeys in our high care unit – sometimes as many as eighteen!

Education is a vital tool in our hands and we distribute thousands of information leaflets, and we often visit schools to do talks about the monkeys. We also do talks to many other interest groups such as police cadets, garden clubs, conservation bodies, body corporates, etc.

The Monkey Helpline is a volunteer group and all our services are free of charge. However, Monkey Helpline is self-funded and donations towards the substantial rescue (including petrol and cell phone), veterinary and after-care costs are desperately needed.

For more information about Vervet monkeys and how to live with them, contact Carol or Steve HERE.