THE PRIMATE TRUST

Musical Chairs

11th December 2014

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More games of 'musical chairs' with our monkeys, as more friends fall out. Nora has mothered 'Kia', a rhesus female, since she came in as a youngster, and in return for all her care has now been so bullied by the teenager Kia we have had to separate them. Kia has joined other female Rhesus, and we tried to re-house Nora with Baldric. He came to us as a youngster and was also mothered by Nora, and we hoped even though he is now a young adult they could remain as friends. At first they were thrilled to be together, and much mutual grooming and play went on. In the morning, however, Nora was seen to have a nasty bite on her back and needed stitches, so it's back to square one.

The two new female langur rescues, Lily and Christelle, have been slowly introduced to our langur troop, one by one for short sessions, and all seems to be going well at present. We hope to be able to keep them all together soon.

Yet again, another baby langur rescue arrived from the forestry department; a male about 1 year old. He was the victim of a dog attack with some very nasty wounds. As yet we don't know if he will make a full recovery.

After many years of begging for damaged fruits from the towns wholesale market for the rescued monkeys I now sometimes get more donations than I can make use of! This week many cases of mangoes, freshly delivered but with marked skins, so not suitable for sale to humans. All the monkeys pigged out on this unexpected bonus binge, but with some of the older ones being overweight we had to make sure they ate their healthy greens first. Often there are gluts of avocadoes, passion fruits or melons donated.

Nissa, our youngest resident, is getting bolder and braver by the day, and we hope to get her to meet with Lily and Christabelle in their pen before long. She still spends most of her day with me, or her favourite substitute mum Suzie, who is a live-in volunteer here.