As promised in my post of March 10, this post deals with the ten week-old baby Vervet Monkey, Ginger, who was violently assaulted by a pellet gun-wielding psychopath in Hillcrest a few days ago.

The first part of the post is an extract from an article about the incident, written by Carol and me, and sent to the community newspapers, Highway Mail and Hilltop, this morning.

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Monkey Helpline's Carol Booth has expressed outrage at the cowardly shooting of a baby monkey in Hillcrest this week.

"On Saturday morning we received a call from a concerned resident of Surprise Ridge, Hillcrest, to tell us about a tiny monkey foraging alone in his garden. He said that the monkey was struggling to walk because of wounds clearly visible on both an arm and a leg. Initially we believed that the baby monkey, a girl, had been injured during skirmishes between monkeys, but closer inspection at the vet revealed what looked suspiciously like a pellet wound in the monkey's right side. X-rays confirmed that the monkey had been shot twice with a pellet gun. One pellet was lodged in her lower abdomen, and the other in her left thigh."

Steve Smit Monkey Helpline coordinator has made an impassioned plea to the public to immediately report anyone they know or suspect of shooting at monkeys, or any other animal, with a pellet gun.

"Anyone discharging a pellet gun in a built up area or anywhere else where there is a risk of injury or damage to another person or property is committing an offence and can be prosecuted in terms of the Firearm Control Act, and in many cases also the Animal Protection Act," said Smit. "We rely heavily on the public to help us stop this cruelty and to bring these criminals to book. The cruel and cowardly behavior of a person who would maliciously shoot two pellets into a ten week-old baby monkey is a danger to everyone who lives around him or her. We need to eliminate the danger these people pose to our safety including that of our children and our pets."

Ends.

We decided to call her Ginger, named after the Ginger Bread Man of chlidrens' story book fame who kept running away from all who tried to catch him, because when we made our move to catch her she ran away from us along the top of a prefabricated concrete wall as fast as her little injured arm and leg would allow her to, and much faster than we expected her to be able to move. It took some speedy footwork from both Carol and I to cut her off and catch hold of her before she got into dense shrubbery from which it would have been almost impossible to extricate her.

Imagine for a moment, if you can, the terrible shock, pain and fear she must have felt when first one, then two, blunt-ended lead pellets smashed viciously into her frail little body. All alone, without the protection and comfort of her mother and siblings, she had to try and follow the route her troop had moved along, the excrutiating pain in her abdomen and leg almost to much to bear. As infection set in she was getting weaker by the hour, this exacerbated by thirst and hunger because she was not getting the nutrition of mother's milk. And she must have been terribly confused and frightened by all the challenges she suddenly had to face on her own as well as being handicapped by her injuries.

If this vicious attack on a harmless baby monkey does not inspire you to support the calls for airguns to be banned in South Africa, nothing will! Please go to, http://www.causes.com/causes/650090-ban-airguns-in-south-africa?template=cause_mailer%2Frecruitment&causes_ref=email by clicking on this link, and by joining this Cause you will be helping us put an end to the scourge of pellet gun (airgun) violence against monkeys and other animals in South Africa.

After catching little Ginger, we took her staright to our vet, Dr Kerry Easson, at Riverside Veterinary Clinic in Durban North. After x-rays revealed the two lead pellets in her tiny body, Dr Easson elected to perform major abdominal surgery on her in order to assess the extent of the damage to her internal organs, intestines, etc. The pellet had passed right through the body wall and miraculously missed perforating any part of her intestines. It had however damaged her bladder and this had to be repaired, which Dr Easson did.

Given the necessary antibiotics, pain killers and subcutaneous fluids for rehydration, Ginger was sent home with us in Carol's expert care. Sadly, with each passing hour she grew weaker and weaker as the effects of the huge infection caused by the bacteria-and-dirt-carrying pellets ravaged her tiny body. She died in Carol's arms late yesterday afternoon, an innocent victim of the cruel and irresponsible use of pellet guns!

Pics - Top to bottom:

Top - Little Ginger sits on Carol's lap en route to the vet. Her beautiful hazel eyes, as she sat watching me, in excrutiating pain and wondering what was in store for her, will haunt me for a long time to come.

Bottom - Two lead pellets, in obscene clarity and definition, show up in Ginger's x-ray. The pellet in her leg caused a large supurating sore just above her left knee, and the one in her abdomen damaged her bladder and in all probability resulted in the infection and other unknown debilitating factors that ultimately killed her.

More Monkey Misery

Its been almost two months since my last blog posting and the time has really been filled with the usual number of monkey rescues, which included a capuchin and a White-eared Marmoset, as well as rescues of all kinds of other animals, including dogs, cats, chickens and numerous other birds and even a few snakes. But what I want to share with you in this posting are the experiences we had on three particular rescue call-outs very recently.

Wherever possible we make use of the printed media to publicise the incidents we deal with, firstly to educate the public about the consequences of human intolerance and cruelty towards animals, and secondly to try and get the message through to those morally retarded sub-humans who perpetrate acts of violence against animals, that they are under scrutiny and will be prosecuted at the first opportunity that arises

Information supplied to the Queensburgh News:

Over a year ago we, the Animal Rights Africa Monkey Helpline project, were called out to the Northdene home of a family who is visited daily by a troop of Vervet monkeys. They love the monkeys and routinely put out some food for them to forage as they pass through. The monkeys stop only for as long as it takes them to eat what is there, then they move on peacefully. They never attack the humans or their pets, don’t purposely trash the garden and certainly don’t do anything that would warrant any act of violence being directed at them by humans.

The reason we were called to this particular home was out of concern for a female monkey who had a wire snare tightly caught around her chest. Our efforts to trap her were unsuccessful because she was so nervous of humans that she would not go anywhere near the trap we set for her. Efforts to dart her proved just as frustrating because she would flee the moment she saw anything suspicious. Inhibited by the constriction of the snare that was now cutting into her flesh, she lost weight to the point where the snare was actually loose enough for her to work it down from her chest to her lower body, and from there it was just a question of time before she managed free herself from the snare completely. She even had a new baby this past baby season.

Then today, June 13, we received a phone call from a house just around the corner from where we had for so long tried to catch the snared monkey. Arriving there we found a mature adult female Vervet monkey lying in the garden, the rest of her troop in close attendance. We caught her easily as her futile efforts to escape using only her arms to drag herself along were pathetically hopeless. Our worst fears were confirmed when the vet’s x-rays showed that she had at least four lead pellets in her body and that the one had entered her right side and lodged in the spinal cord, paralyzing her lower body and leaving her in excruciating pain and fearfully confused at not being able to walk or climb or protect her six or seven month old baby. The baby had sat on a branch above her bravely threatening us as we caught her, but the little fellow's threats had no effect on the humans he must have believed were going to take his mom off for a meal. What else could he expect of humans given the experiences he'd had of them so far during his short life.

And then, to add to the tragedy, we noticed the scar encircling her chest and back and we knew too that this was the female who had cheated death once before when she managed to get rid of the snare that threatened to choke her to death. This time she would not be so lucky and it was with heavy hearts that we witnessed her life slip gently away as the vet did the kindest thing she could and euthanised her. But spare a thought for the little orphan who will now have to make his way through every day, facing all the obstacles of monkey life in an urban area and hope to have an older brother, sister or aunt to snuggle close to at night!

We drove home vowing to continue our fight to protect these beautiful and fascinating little animals from the actions of those cruel and ignorant humans who so readily resort to violence against innocents who are unable to defend themselves. Over eighty percent of all monkeys rescued by the Monkey Helpline have got lead pellets lodged in their bodies!

Discharging a pellet gun in an urban area, ands even pointing a pellet gun at person or property, is an offence in terms of the Firearms Control Act. Report incidents of pellet gun crime to Monkey Helpline or your nearest SAPS or Metro Police station, and help us protect the monkeys and other animals, and even humans, against these bloodthirsty criminals.

Information supplied to the Northglen News:

This past week has again turned out to be a bad one for monkeys generally, and particularly for the monkeys living in the Durban North area.

Last week the Monkey Helpline was alerted to a monkey in Umgeni Heights with what appeared to be black oil covering her entire body. After a number of phone calls from concerned residents, Carol Booth and Steve Smit managed to trap the monkey and discovered that she was in fact covered in a dark varnish or bitumen type substance.

“This was obviously a deliberate act of cruelty by some uncaring person who must have trapped the monkey and then poured the varnish over her whilst she was confined in the trap”, said Carol. “The ignorance and antagonism of some anti-monkey people is unbelievable. They still believe in the old myth that by catching and painting a monkey, usually white, then releasing it, you will instill such fear in the remainder of the troop that they will run away and never be seen in the area again. It stems from the nineteenth century days of the boers who painted baboons and monkeys with white wash or wet them and threw bread flour all over them to keep them out of their crops. It did not work then and doesn’t work now. Every painted monkey we have rescued was found in their troop in the same area they were painted. It is just very cruel and very unnecessary”.

“What makes this particular case even worse is that this young female is pregnant with her first baby and unless we are able to clean her without removing too much hair she will have to stay with us in captivity and give birth to her baby here. This will cause her terrible stress and depending how long she is with us will determine how successfully she and her baby can be integrated back into their troop”.

In another case of blatant cruelty and in contravention of both the Firearm Control Act and the Animal Protection Act, a young monkey was injured after a rock was thrown at it from a residential property in Sunningdale by a construction worker. According to an eye witness the monkey fell to ground crying pitifully, with a number of other monkeys frantically trying to help it. After a while a person emerged from the property and took the still crying monkey inside. A short while later the sound of a pellet gun being discharged was heard and the monkey was silenced.

Monkey Helpline was called and managed to take possession of the monkey’s body. Steve said that when he first asked for the monkey’s body, the person who admitted to having killed the monkey said he had buried it. However when the body was brought out it was very obvious that it had not been buried. “It was wrapped in brown paper and was obviously destined for the pot or for muti use”, said Steve. “We could see that the monkey had been shot into the chest below the left arm and when I asked who had shot it the same person admitted to having done so. He claimed that ‘hundreds’ of monkeys had rampaged through the property and were attacking his dogs. Both dogs were right there and had not a mark on them”, said Steve.

Steve said that the incident had been reported to both the SPCA and the SAPS and that Monkey Helpline and the other witnesses to the incident would submit sworn statements in an effort to get the person who shot the monkey prosecuted. “We have x-rays of the body showing the pellet and are awaiting the vet’s report to substantiate our statements”.

Carol said that much antagonism and violence towards monkeys was based on ignorance or arrogance. “By educating people, and prosecuting where necessary, we hope to change this. People must realize that the troops of monkeys they see have lived here for hundreds of years and that our development has impacted adversely on them. They have a right to be here and we must learn how to live in harmony with them. This only requires a bit of tolerance and understanding on our part. Whilst many people fear being attacked by monkeys or catching rabies from them, these fears are unfounded. Monkeys only bite in extreme cases of provocation and only in self defense. Dogs only get bitten after they have attacked and caught a monkey. And as for rabies, there has never been a recorded case of a rabid monkey in South Africa. Monkeys can get rabies just like any other mammal, including humans, but they are not rabies carriers”.

Carol and Steve ask people to contact the Monkey Helpline if they are having problems with monkeys or know of anyone shooting them. “We do our best to provide practical, humane solutions and it is definitely not necessary to resort to cruelty when dealing with monkeys”, concluded Carol.