Mooned by a Monkey

3/24/2012

Chiquito moons Juan.

      Chiquito turned two this week, and his behavior has indeed become terrible. He mooned two construction workers yesterday, and then  "discovered himself" by both hand and mouth (he can reach). But when he saw me watching he retracted his penis into its sheath.
     A picture is worth a thousand words, so I set him up again today with a third worker - and he obliged.
     My son came home from preschool two decades ago exhibiting the same behavior. Verbal correction wasn't effective, so I mooned him back and nipped things in the bud (so to speak).

    Chiquito doesn't moon me, and maybe it's just normal immature male behavior?
    I also find myself reluctant to moon a monkey...

2 Comments

Phoebe

3/25/2012 03:33:33 am

What is your background in animal rehabilitation and what is the plan for a release? Will they go into the wild at some point? Is there a protected national forest near by?progress with the release

Michele

3/25/2012 05:15:49 am

Hi Phoebe,
I volunteered for several summers at a wildlife rehabilitation center in WA.
The spider monkeys won't be sexually mature until they're about 5 years old, and we're not sure yet whether we will do a hard or soft release. Our land borders a river and hundreds of hectares that are leased by MINAET where we have written permission to release wildlife, but although there are wild howlers and capuchins there are no longer spider monkeys. Chiquito explores at the river for an hour several times a week, and we will increase that when Lolita is old enough to join him.
Thank you for commenting,
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.

Mooned by a Monkey

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Michele Gawenka

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