Turning 18 with Cuddles from a Monkey
Hunting has long been an issue for the animals in this region and unfortunately, it has led to many species extinction. One important species that was lost was the black spider monkey (Ateles chamek), which went locally extinct in the lower Madre de Dios region of Peru, specifically within the Tambopata region due to hunting for meat and habitat loss. While they disappeared from the region between 1980 and 1990, many reintroduction programs are now trying to bring them back to the area. One of these programs exists here at Kawsay, where the day before my arrival they released four rescued spider monkeys into the reserve. Now, one of the tasks assigned here in the station is monitoring these recently released spider monkeys to track their behavior and examine how the reintroduction process is going. This project is led by two of the head researchers/coordinators at the station, who have both done extensive work with spider monkeys. When monitoring the monkeys a focus individual is selected and we take data on what they are doing and what strata of the forest they are in every two minutes. The four individuals we have now are named Yaku, Esmerelda, Inti, and Raul. They were all rescued from a zoo in Puerto Maldonado that was shut down due to animal abuse concerns and an incident of a woman losing her arm while petting a tiger during one of the zoo's “immersive experiences”. The monkeys were living in a very small enclosure with no enrichment and were in very close contact with humans every day. One of them, Inti, was also a pet for some time and therefore is quite accustomed to humans. They were taken from the zoo to a local rescue called Amazon Shelter where they were rehabilitated and then brought to Kawsay to facilitate the reintroduction and monitoring in our concession land.
I knew that having my 18th birthday 4,000+ miles away from home would be a new experience, but I didn’t anticipate the wild monkey on my foot. I started the day at 5:30 am with a boiled egg and bread roll with peanut butter before heading out into the jungle to monitor the reintroduced spider monkeys. When we arrived at the release cage we found all four monkeys still asleep in a tree so we tried to find some dry ground to sit on to wait. Today we were tracking Esmerelda, one of the juveniles. Watching the juveniles is always interesting as you can see them beginning to pick up certain behaviors from the adults – currently Esmerelda has begun to copy the way Raul eats and Yaku tries to imitate his wild swings as he climbs. As all the monkeys were together in the zoo, they are all learning how to exist in the wild and gain essential skills like climbing the trees. While they are learning fast – Raul and Yaku have learned to swing back and forth on smaller trees to make pendulums and transport themselves across greater distances – they still often fall or make embarrassing mistakes. One day while I was out observing them with the researcher Stephanie, Yaku fell part of the way out of a tree he was climbing, crashing through the branches with a loud ruckus and eventually catching himself on a low branch. We were all watching but as soon as he put his head up Stephanie told us to immediately look away as he gets easily embarrassed and if he thinks we are looking at him while he made a mistake he could get angry. Learning these little details about their behavior is so interesting to me, they each have very specific and unique personalities and studying them shows me how hard it is to fully understand their complex thoughts and emotions.
We watched Esmerelda as she woke up, climbed down the tree, and began foraging for some food. We noted each time she was traveling, feeding, socializing, or resting. Occasionally, one of the monkeys would come down out of the trees and move towards us and we would immediately turn around and begin walking down the trail away from them and they would go back to the trees. However, this morning, all of the individuals were coming to the ground a lot and we would have to get up and move every few minutes. After a bit they all settled down together and began eating in the lower branches of some trees and we continued taking our data on Esmerelda until Inti began to move determinedly down the tree and in our direction. We stood up again and began to walk down the trail, stopping at the place we usually wait for them to go away but upon looking back we found she was still advancing and gaining speed. Moving as quickly as we could without running and whispering to each other in brisk tones to keep going, we continued further down the trail. While moving I reached into the bag and pulled out the two guns (not real guns, bb-style toy guns filled with water beads like orbeez used to deter the monkeys in extreme circumstances) and passed one to the lead researcher Roxanna. Holding the guns provides somewhat of a false sense of security, as most of the monkeys have now become indifferent to it – especially Inti who will just sit there and let the pellets bounce off her without doing anything, and sometimes the noise and chaos of the guns can make a tense situation worse and more unpredictable. Just as I got the gun situated in my hand, Inti had caught up to us, passed Roxanna, and was right behind me on the trail. I held my breath and moved quickly to the side of the trail, my finger resting on the trigger of the gun but holding back knowing it would likely only make the situation worse. She paused a few feet from me, looking from me, back to Roxanna, and in front of us to the other volunteer before deciding to brush past me and continue her pursuit towards him. The group now separated, me and Roxanna waited behind a tree anxiously watching Inti pursue him further down the trail. He tried to evade her by stepping off the trail and behind some trees but Inti continued her determined pursuit. Using the trees, he circled back to us and together we rushed back down the trail, straight in the direction of the other monkeys. As we moved, we heard rustling in the trees above us and looked up to see Raul (the largest and scariest of the males) bearing down on us and Yaku to the side following along in the low canopy. My heart was racing and my breath came in short gasps, the last thing I wanted on my 18th birthday was to be bitten by a money and need to get taken to town for rabies shots (though that certainly would have made for a wild story). Roxanna was speaking to me in low tones, reminding me to stay calm, not run, and telling me not to fire the gun – as my hand was beginning to tighten around the handle. We were moving through the forest as quickly as we could without tripping over the roots, the other volunteer separated again further behind us, but this time it was us who were being chased. My breath caught in my throat when I heard Raul hit the ground behind me – I had yet to have any scary experiences with him but I had heard my roommates talk about him and how he was the one they were all scared of. I heard him approaching quickly, he was between me and Roxanna and coming towards me fast. I didn’t look back, I didn't want anything to slow me down or to risk angering him more if I accidentally locked eyes with him. Before I knew it he was there, my blood froze and I braced for the impact of the attack I felt certain must be coming. Instead, he rushed past me on the ground, running on all fours and screeching. He hopped up a tree a few feet away and stopped when he was just above head height. I froze, not wanting to move in his direction, and in that moment of stillness Inti caught up to me from behind. She grabbed my foot and wrapped herself around the bottom of my leg, her hands clasping around my boot. Roxanna caught up to me and told me not to move. For a tense moment we were all still and quite confused. I had been sure I was going to be bit but now it seemed I was simply being cuddled by a monkey. My heart still raced, I was in the hot seat and at any moment she could switch her temperament. The other monkeys hovered close by, in the understory of the trees or just above the ground. Over the next hour and 45 minutes the other monkeys slowly moved away but Inti only snuggled in closer. She tucked her head under her arm and sat her whole body on my foot. Her long limbs wrapped around both of my legs, holding them together and preventing any movement. She tried to climb higher up my body but I moved my arms so she couldn’t get a good grip with her hands or tail. She got bored and I could see her picking at the dirt, fiddling with the strings on my boots, and at one point she tried to lift my foot off the ground. We were hopeful that she would be bored enough to leave but instead she fell asleep on my foot for a while. After 1.5 hours we tried to lure her away from my foot with Roxanna’s hard boiled egg but as soon as she realized she would have to leave my foot to reach the egg she turned around and grabbed me tighter than before. She was rubbing her face on my leg and making little chirps and purring noises which Roxanna explained to me are their happy noises. At this point my fear had gone and I was even enjoying her cuddles a bit, even though it is not a good sign for their reintroduction as we don't want them to be seeking out humans. I was beginning to think I would be stuck there all day so every few minutes I would try to scooch a free leg towards a nearby tree trunk. As soon as she felt my leg moving she would grab onto it and move her body to the leg that was trying to escape. After about 15 minutes of this maneuver we were quite close to the tree trunk and another 10 minutes of waiting finally freed me. I could tell she was bored, her grip was loosening around my leg and at one point she was sitting on the ground again with just her tail still wrapped around me and eventually that too dropped. Seizing that moment I quietly stepped back and out of range and together the three of us hurried down the path, through the forest, and back to the station after ensuring they weren't following.
Though there were moments I thought my heart would beat out of my chest and I had been nearly certian I was going to be bit, this encounter instead resulted in an unforgetable experience and a very long birthday hug from a special monkey.
What a birthday! You had me on the edge of my seat, like a car chase in the movie theatre. Whew! So glad you got a hug to remember and not a tatoo of teeth marks!