World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org

Woolly Monkey Keeper Talk We have three groups of woolly monkeys here at the park; Levar’s group, Chippy’s group and Paulo’s group.

Woolly Monkeys In The Wild In the wild woolly monkeys are found in the of , around areas of Columbia, , , and . They live in multi male, multi female groups which can number 40-50 individuals.

This group can then divide off into smaller groups during the daytime for foraging as this reduces the competition for food. The group is headed up by one dominant male who is there to protect and lead the group, discipline individuals and diffuse any conflict within the group.

Levar Chippy Paulo

Here at the park, each of our groups are headed up by a single dominant male who can be recognised easily by his size difference to other individuals within the group, as they have a much larger muscle mass. Each group is named after their dominant male, who can often be seen doing some very impressive dominancy displays to show off their strength and power.

Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org Infants at Monkey World In Levar’s group, we have several females and youngsters as Monkey World is part of the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme (EEP) for woolly monkeys which is why we are currently actively breeding.

Females reach sexual maturity around 6-7 years of age, and at this point they will leave their natal group to avoid inbreeding. Females are pregnant for around 7 and half months and will usually give birth to just one infant. Twins have been recorded in the past, however this is very rare and usually only one will survive into adulthood as multiple births place too much demand and pressure on the mother. There will then be a birth interval of around 2 years before they then have another baby.

Babies will begin their life clinging onto mum’s belly, and you can see from the adult females we have in the group that they have long chest hair which helps aid this. The babies are born with an automatic tight grip which help them cling on as mum swings through the treetops, and they have the added benefit of using their tail to wrap around mum as well. The babies will then move onto mums back after a few weeks before slowly starting to come off their backs for short periods of time initially, staying next to the safety of mum. After a couple of months they will slowly begin to get braver and venture further afield and start to explore the outside world.

Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org Hand-rearing Woolly Monkeys Here at Monkey World the majority of our breeding females have proven to be fantastic mums and have reared their babies themselves. However occasionally things don’t go to plan and we have now had to hand rear 5 woolly monkey babies.

We aim to get the babies back into a woolly group as quickly as we can as they are very social and naturally would be living in a family group. Therefore even when the babies are only a few weeks old we will start bringing them down to the houses to be able to see the other monkeys through the mesh, smell them and hear their vocalisations. This means they can start learning from them early and it makes introductions back into the groups much quicker and smoother as everyone is used to seeing each other.

When they are a little older we set up a specially designed crèche for them in the house where they can spend their days building their strength and practising their climbing skills. Then by the time they are 5 months old we can start introducing them back into the group full time.

Once we are happy they are settled and fully adjusted to their new living situation we take a step back from them, no longer go in with them and allow them to develop in a normal woolly monkey family, only supplementing their milk feeds where and when needed.

Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org Tails and Trees Woolly monkeys are arboreal meaning they spend the majority of their time high up in the trees in the forest canopy.

They have a specially designed tail known as a which can basically act as a fifth limb for them. It is very strong and can support their whole body weight. If you watch them closely as they are moving around you will notice how it automatically grips onto things as they are moving around, and is designed to aid their movement and balance through the trees.

It also means they can suspension feed up in the trees by dangling down by their tail, leaving their hands and feet free to grab food and branches. It’s also great fun for the youngsters to dangle upside down to wrestle and play with each other!

You’ll notice in our enclosures we try to get the woolly monkeys to replicate this natural behaviour as much as we can by hanging suspension feeders and rope systems high up in the trees for them.

Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org Threats To Woolly Monkeys Sadly in the wild the woolly monkey population is now listed as endangered. They have a few natural predators such as eagles and however the main threat to them is deforestation. They are losing big areas of their natural habitat for various reasons such as farming, logging and construction, which takes away both the space in which they have to live but also their vital food sources. They also get hunted for the bush meat trade, and youngsters can be targeted to be sold into the pet trade.

Unfortunately in captivity they are not doing that well either as they are notoriously difficult to look after and suffer from a wide range of problems and illnesses. Here at Monkey World we have 22 woolly monkeys, which is one of the largest captive populations in the western world.

The main problem which faces captive woollies is stress which can lead to a lot of different problems and illnesses for them but the biggest problem is hyper tension. This can also lead to other complications such as pre-eclampsia in the pregnant females. Stress can be a difficult thing to pick up on so it is very important that the PCS here build a relationship with each individual and learn their characters and personalities, which means we can pick up on the even the smallest changes in their behaviour, and try to pin point and address what the issue may be and if its stress related.

We keep group sizes low which means they can make the most of the space they have and it helps with the social dynamics, as it means they have plenty of space and areas to go to get away from the other individuals if they wish.

Monkey World – Ape Rescue Centre www.monkeyworld.org Operant Conditioning We also do a lot of training with our primates here known as operant conditioning. All of our training sessions are done through the mesh, we don’t go in with any of them, and participation in them in voluntary.

During each training session we work on teaching them to present different body parts to us; this allows us to carry out regular health checks without causing any unnecessary stress. Our main focus with the woolly monkey training currently is working towards a tail presentation.

The main reason is that there is a very good blood pressure point at the base of the tail where we could attach a blood pressure cuff to try get an accurate blood pressure reading. As this seems to be such a big problem for them hopefully it means that in the future we can not only learn a lot more about it, share our knowledge with other places, but also monitor them all closely and try and help them out.

How You Can Help You can support our rescue and rehabilitation work by joining our adoption scheme. If you would like to adopt the woolly monkeys you get to adopt all 22 individuals, and for your donation you get an entrance pass to the park for a year, a certificate and photo of the animals, and a copy of the ape rescue chronicle which comes out 3 times a year so you are able to find out recent news and information from the park. Your adoption cost goes into a 100% fund used solely for the rescue and rehabilitation of primates in need.

The next talk is by the chimpanzee pavilions at 1.00pm. Please do ask the keepers any questions you may have.