In the Fall 2007 Animal Issues, we reported on the sad case of Justin, a young, ex-“pet,” male snow monkey. Although initially overwhelmed by his new surroundings, Justin settled in quickly at our Sanctuary. It was not long before he started to vocalize with Teddy, Zach, and Gilbert, three young, male macaques, also ex-“pets,” who lived next to him.
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Over a period of time, we were able to gradually introduce Justin to the three boys. Watching Justin adjust to his new life was heartwarming. He has formed a particularly strong attachment with Gilbert and the two can often be seen wrestling and chasing each other. All four boys now live together as one social group and were recently moved to a larger semi-natural enclosure that has more trees and thick vegetation for them to explore. Our hope is that one day we will be able to move this group into a large, natural, free-range enclosure.
During the past couple of years we have successfully rehabilitated a number of monkeys, who have previously lived unnatural lives in private homes and research laboratories. At our Primate Sanctuary, they now live with others of their kind in social groups in large semi-natural enclosures with vegetation and native earthen floors. We would like to enrich their lives even further by providing them with a natural, spacious free-range environment like we have with most of the other monkeys at the Sanctuary. We are currently raising funds to build more open-topped, free-range enclosures that will enable monkeys such as Justin, Teddy, Zach, and Gilbert to have more space and freedom in a natural environment. Such enclosures are costly, but the rewards for the animals are immeasurable.
You can help: Please donate what you can to help us build these enclosures and thereby enable rescued monkeys to live as natural a life as possible. You can make all the difference by adopting a rescued primate for just $60 a year — that’s less than $1.25 a week. Just contact our Development Department at development@bornfreeusa.org or see our Adoption Page.