Can You Count the Spider Monkeys?

4/19/2015

Michele feeding raisins to the monkeys.

Can you count the spider monkeys? Hint: Ignore the arms and legs and tails...and look for "coconut heads."
Our six spider monkeys were recently relocated to Macaw Sanctuary El Manantial in Puntarenas in preparation for our return to the United States, and they could not have adapted more wonderfully!!! We visited today and our hearts are at peace.

Rodolfo, the owner of the sanctuary, is a natural with animals. He put our five older spider monkeys in together, which made Chiquito a very happy boy. And then he put our baby, Dorita, in with his two older females...and they both wanted to adopt her. She now clings happily to Lizeth 24 hours a day. Even better? Rodolfo put the three of them in with the other five, and they were instantly a contented troop of eight. The rest of the monkeys even let Lizeth and Dorita eat first...

DORITA and her new surrogate mother LIZETH.

DORITA and her other surrogate mother Machita.

What's next? We're building a larger enclosure for the spider monkeys, and they should move in within a few weeks. I stood at one end today and took a photo of Paul and Rodolfo standing at the other end...soccer/football anyone?

RODOLFO and PAUL at the other end of the new spider monkey enclosure.

2 Comments

Stewart Hayes link

9/8/2019 11:08:31 am

Michele & Paul,
You are both amazing humans!
Not unlike the lost creatures you rescue, as a young boy I too was lost. My last and best foster home was in a little town in the Pacific Northwest. It was there that I finally had the opportunity to observe the highest standards of human behavior. Without a dad in my life, I tended to replicate the characteristics I liked seeing in these good people, primarily students and adults. One of these students, a couple years ahead of me, was a guy whose academic integrity and athletic courage constantly inspired me. So, as he was preparing to graduate, when I was asked to replace him as a student worker at a local grocery store, I was stunned and honored. To others this may have seemed like no big deal. It just a part time job at Safeway. But to me it was a true honor to be given the opportunity to try in any way to fill the shoes of that student/athlete, Paul Gawenka, West High, Class of ‘69!

Michele Gawenka

9/9/2019 12:29:28 pm

Thank you, Stewart! I think Paul is pretty amazing, too. He's going to contact you via email. Best, Michele

Michele Gawenka

Jane Goodall has always been my hero, and working with primates an aspiration. Africa wasn't in the cards the summer I turned 16, when my parents offered to send me to volunteer, and there was only one class (in physical anthro-pology) when I wanted to study primatology in college.
Decades later my husband and I retired in Costa Rica, and this is our journey with spider (and howler) monkeys.

Can You Count the Spider Monkeys?

Leave a Reply.

Michele Gawenka

Archives