Gabriela and Anna Rosa visit the children

Last weekend we had a surprise visit from Gabriela and Anna Rosa. Gabriela of course is a regular visitor to Canaote. She was able to introduce the party to all the children. Maniña as ever was on great form and wanted to kiss all the ladies. Lucio, not to be outdone showed that he too is a Casanova. People are always surprised to see how gentle and friendly they are.  Anna Rosa had attended a lecture given by David at the La Salle College so she was anxious to include a tour around the arboretum on this visit. She set off with David and  party and arrived back later pleased with her tour. Anna and Gabriela brought many gifts for the children and we are very grateful for their thoughtfulness. Additionally the Human family of Chippy sent gifts for which we sent our thanks. Anna Rosa and Gabriela each received a pot of our home made Mascparone.

 

The party with Gabriela with Anna Rosa standing together with Anna Rosa on the extreme right

Pre breakfast breakfast with Erik and Chilin

 

Erik at pre breakfast breakfast

 

It's not a secret that our two youngest members sleep in our house at night. Monkeys love routine. Monkeys who are free to take care of themselves in the wild still have a daily rhythm which they follow. They groom, they eat, they travel, they rest, they forage again, etc. Chilin and Eric have a routine. At six o'clock in the morning they follow us into the kitchen. Whilst I am making coffee for the household, I put a bowl of milk on the table and a piece of fruit. Erik and Chilin play for a while, racing around the room and generally causing chaos. Then they settle down and help themselves to the milk and fruit. Now it is time for them to go to their enclosure for the day. I give them a piggy back ride to their daytime home. They are given three meals during the day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, all of which are served in their quarters. They play together most of the day, that is except around mid day when they take siesta. At dusk they are allowed back into our house where they play until they are exhausted. But not too tired because they still have enough energy to steal from our plates at our evening meal. Monkeys that have bonded to humans don't like to be separated from their human. We adopt this routine so that they know that by evening they will be reunited with us. I work in my office during the day and it happens they this abuts to their enclosure. The window on that side is slotted frosted glass, but there is a fault in the array which leaves a small hole, through which they can see me. From time to time during the day, I see a Shadow on the other side of the glass. From this I know that one of them is checking to be sure that I am nearby. Just before it is time for them to join us in the evening, they sit in the window looking through the glass for the moment when I will collect them. They also remind me vocally if I am more them a few minutes late. Establishing routine is an important part of the care of monkeys in captivity.Chilin at pre breakfast breakfast is our final picture

 

 

I just don't believe it.

 

 

This is the pie chart showing 90 visitors today ....so far.

 

 

Tell me please.

Forget me not averages between 10 to 15 visitors a day. This does not vary very much. Occasionally when something exciting happens, the number goes up a few points.

 

Today at between 3.30 and 4 O'clock, we had 76 visitors. This is a completely unknown number. We have never had that number in a day let alone in an hour. So tell me if you know. What happened? These visitors were from around the world with callers from every continent.

Give me a call, I'm in the book.

Anyone who has experience with monkeys knows that they are intelligent and just like humans they can get bored. As with humans, boredom can lead to problems. The bored child can exhibit rage for no obvious reason and a myriad of other symptoms. So it is with monkeys. The symptoms are many. Excessive destructiveness, fighting among themselves, rocking backwards and forwards for long periods, biting. Together with the physical signs there are also the mental ones. This can be anything from strange behaviour to depression and full blown mental illness. So it is clear that it is not sufficient to simple provide a bed and food for a non human primate. His well being must also include a routine that is interesting to him. I was fascinated recently, to read in 'The Simian', the journal of the Simian Society of America, of a very innovative diversion for entertaining Capuchin monkeys. This was a once only activity. The monkeys were provided with a telephone directory. No it was not expected that that they would look up their friends and make a call. Phones were not provided.

The monkeys progressively destroyed the book, one page after another. Naturally this took a considerable time. The thicker the book the longer it takes. But by mid afternoon the pages of the directory lay all over the enclosure. This game fascinated the monkeys and had their attention for many hours. I include here photographs of before and after with one of our three Capuchin monkeys 'Çhicatin'. You see him busy at work on the directory. I am not suggesting that we should do this too often but it is the kind of innovative thinking that is needed to keep our monkeys interested alert and happy.

Cement mixer, putty putty.

Several of our readers have made significant contributions to our appeal for help with the cost of cementing the floors of our enclosures. This work is going ahead now. I enclose a few photographs of the work. During the cementing, naturally it has been necessary to resite the children for most of the day. They only return to their own enclosure late in the evening, after the cement has hardened. As you can imagine,this move has had a mixed reception by the monkeys. The plan is to use the outside enclosure of Chilin and Erik. This has meant restricting these two to the in corridor part of their domain. The work is going at a great pace with one enclosure being complete every day. The biggest problem has been the moving of  the Capuchin monkeys, they are much faster and much more likely to bite than the Howlers. It is good to know that the work has been very well done and the workers have shown great professionalism. In order to minimise the disturbance to the monkeys, the workers user a motorised cement mixer, which gave a good quality consistent mix at a fast speed.

The bottom picture shows the finished enclosure of Lucio,Schatov, and Monito. They were back at home last night. But naturally all their walkways and toys had to be restored after the work had finished.

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By gosh! Those are great bananas.

A few posts ago I showed you some of the fruit from our garden. These bananas were harvested today from our botanic garden. As you can see they are very fine specimens. They will be put in a shaded area for a few days to fully ripen. Then they will be part of the variety of fruit and vegetables that we provided daily for our monkeys. Bananas are thought of as traditional monkey foods although the truth is that we used them in moderation in the diet. The reason is that bananas are very rich in sugar. Howler monkeys in particular are prone to sugar diabetes so we provide bananas judicially. In the picture you meet Rafael our who works with the children every day, and is also responsible for keeping an eye on the fruits in the garden and providing them for the children when available.



Governors Plum shown here is another great favourite with our monkeys. It seems that they never tire of eating this fruit and I am very fond of it myself. One for MonaLisa one for me basis. We have nine male trees and two females trees. The tree is dioecious. This year the fruit have been particularly abundant. More about this fruit in a later posting.

Monito gets a family visit

On Sunday Monito's human family paid a visit to Monito and got involved with Monito's monkey family. Our pictures show Raul giving a lift to Lucio. To the right Schatov and Monito relax on Patricia's lap and Monito and Patricia spend time together bottom right. Just for once the weather stayed fine and the family were able to spend more time than usual with the children. Getting here early needs a dawn start from Caracas. I know they feel the effort is worth it. The children love visitors and immediately recognised them.

The following day we began preparation for the cementing of the floor of their enclosure. This meant moving Schatov,Lucio and Monito to another enclosure for the day. All went well with the transfer although after their curiosity had been satisfied, they soon realized that this new enclosure was quite a bit smaller than their own home and did not contain the same wealth of toys. When evening came we decided to move them back to their own enclosure for the night. As soon as the door was opened Lucio and Monito shot out and were high up in the canopy before we were able to catch them. many hours later we were able to encourage them to return to their home. I think the prospect of missing dinner combined with the possibility of having to sleep in the trees convinced them to return. It also began to look like rain and Howlers do not like getting wet.

Orchids at Canaote

Cynoches chlorochilion

 

 

Lets not forget that Canaote is also a Botanic Garden. We have many hundred of Palms and tropical fruit trees. Venezuela is internationally famous for orchids. So when we first came here we were surprised to find that there were not many orchids in the forest hereabouts. The reason for this alluded us for a long time but at last we realised that the problem was the grass fires that this area is subject to every dry season. The low level grass fires would burn off the young orchids before maturity without actually destroying the tree. Thus it appeared that there were few orchids in this area. Now from time to time we collect the orchids that we find and resite them to safe locations where they will not be destroyed. This Cynoches chlorochilionhis  was originally found by us among the lime trees on the property some four years ago. We moved it to its present location, near our compound, where it will be safe from fires. It measures four inches tip to tip.

One of the pleasures of the orchid interest is to see their perfection. They have amazing symmetry, they have extraordinary wealth of color. These are the things that come to mind when you attend orchid shows or visit collectors. I live close to the forest in North Western Venezuela, famous of course for its orchids. But I see a different aspect of the orchid world. I see the wild ones in the forest. Not so perfect with their blemishes from insect attack and the ravages of the climate. They have a special charm bread of their independence from man and their power of survival. 

To cement or not to cement, that is the question.

The remarkable thing about our shelter is that many of the families of the monkeys, not only keep in touch but are still actively concerned with the children's welfare.  With our blog, forget me not, we set out to keep everyone informed about the well being of the children here but more than that, to relate some of the events and changes that take place.

Very typically, we received some correspondence from a family about the cement program. As well as giving us some excellent technical advice regarding the use of cement, the family also expressed some concern. I would like to share that with you.

 

The family wrote: (my translation, any errors are mine).

 

I think that the children should have contact with the earth floor for diverse reasons that I enumerate next:

1) The earth is softer should they fall,

2) This is what is in their inhabit natural,

3) The concrete is very rough for their paws or slippery if it has the finish of refined cement and

4) I think they should have a small area of the cage with concrete floor to avoid the mud in times of rain.

 

This was my reply:

Thank you for your helpful expert advice. My calculations on cement were very rough. I simply observed the amount used on an experimental cementing of the area around a feeding area, and then extrapolated for the whole area. I have included the old big enclosure which is no longer used. We intend to repair and maintain it.

I understand your concern about cementing the ground. I also agree with what you say. But there are other considerations to take into account and it is necessary to make a decision based on the best health consideration for the monkeys.

Here is my reasoning. This is wild country. The soil of the forest is old and contaminated with nematodes, parasites. We keep our children in large enclosures in order to separate them from the forest. The wild monkeys frequently carry parasitic diseases some of which are indigenous to the forests. We frequently monitor the faeces of the monkeys to determine if they are infected. Occasionally this test is positive and we take veterinary medical action. This is also true of the mountain water, we prepare the children’s drinks with only filtered water.

There is no possibility of eradicating the nematodes they are very resistant to sprays and disinfectants. Even the best of these sprays are toxic to the monkeys. The nematodes can live in the soil dormant for many years. To reinforce my knowledge of these parasites I recently took a couple of university refresher courses on this subject.

My opinion is that suppressing the parasite activity by using cement is the only means we have of protecting the children against them.

I realise that this has drawbacks but I believe the advantage outweighs the disadvantage. The children are very athletic and never fall to the ground in spite of their great gymnastic ability.

I hope this explanation clarifies the problem and explains my actions.

 

We are delighted with this interaction which is totally in the spirit of Forget me not. Please write to us if you have ideas or concerns. We love to hear from you.

Today we have photographs of Manina and Tutti. Tutti of course is the little one on the right.