Monkeys Find Homes in San Diego, Other Zoos

SAN DIEGO — It started with a shocking phone call from a man in South Africa to a monkey expert at the San Diego Zoo: How much should he charge for young monkeys caught in the wild?

To Karen Killmar, associate curator of mammals, the idea of selling monkeys was repellent.

“In this profession, you get some strange calls, but this was a first,” Killmar said, adding in a chilly tone, “We do not put a price tag on our animals.”

Still, Killmar was intrigued. She started asking the caller questions. The more she learned about the monkeys, the more she thought they should be rescued rather than sold as exotic pets.

The monkeys had been caught in the Democratic Republic of Congo and brought to South Africa. They were leftovers from the illicit traffic in “bush meat” that is pushing some monkeys and other species to the brink of extinction.

Poachers hunt adult monkeys in the wild for food and then sell their young as pets -- or to be fattened for slaughter. Selling bush meat is illegal in most of Africa, but the trade still flourishes.

Killmar went to South Africa to meet the man and the captive monkeys. The man was credible. He was not a poacher, just a businessman who had bought the monkeys in Congo in hopes of making a profit by selling them in more prosperous South Africa, where the sale of exotic pets is legal.

Now, 13 months after the call, 33 orphaned monkeys from five species have been distributed among six zoos in the United States that, under the banner of the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums, pooled their resources to bring them to this country.

“I realized we had to do something; we couldn’t let these monkeys slip into the private sector,” Killmar said.

Releasing them back into the wild was not considered an option because it would have required returning them to Congo; also, some lacked the skills to survive in the wild because they had been separated from their mothers at an early age.

In early March, the monkeys arrived on a flight from South Africa to San Francisco and, after a monthlong quarantine at a federal facility in Sacramento, were distributed to zoos in Litchfield Park, Ariz.; Tampa, Fla.; Houston; San Antonio; Denver; and San Diego.

The six zoos paid $400,000 to keep the monkeys under quarantine in South Africa, have them tended by veterinarians and then flown to the United States. The San Diego Zoo, the most heavily visited zoo in the nation, paid $80,000 of the total.

Even as they arranged to bring the monkeys to the United States, zoo officials debated the possibility that the move might encourage others in Africa to offer monkeys for sale. The decision was made to continue the transaction but to spread a cautionary word in animal circles.

“This is a one-time-only thing,” said Jane Ballentine, spokeswoman for the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums. The 33 monkeys are thought to be between 2 and 5 years old.

The six zoos are part of the association’s Old World Monkey Taxon Advisory Group, which tries to raise public awareness of the bush meat trade.

Jim Maddy, the association’s executive director, said he hopes the monkeys will “bring the harrowing story of the bush meat trade to the visiting public.” The 33 were divvied up by matching them with zoos that already had colonies of the same species. Signs will be posted at the zoos telling the monkeys’ story.

Although the monkeys are imperiled by the bush meat trade and clear-cutting of their habitat, they are not listed as an endangered species. If they had been on the list, it would have been harder to rescue them because there would have been more red tape to import them.

San Diego received four Allen’s swamp monkeys and one Debrazza’s guenon. A second Debrazza’s guenon flunked a tuberculosis test and will remain in South Africa until it no longer tests positive.

The Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park received four black mangabeys and two Schmidt’s spot-nosed guenons; the Denver Zoo, two Wolf’s guenons and two Debrazza’s guenons; the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, two Wolf’s guenons and four Schmidt’s spot-nosed guenons; the Houston Zoo, two Schmidt’s spot-nosed guenons, two Allen’s swamp monkeys and two Debrazza’s guenons; and the San Antonio Zoo, two Wolf’s guenons and four black mangabeys.

At the San Diego Zoo, the newly arrived Debrazza’s guenon, a young male, is spending time with an elderly Debrazza’s female for socialization before making its public debut.

The four swamp monkeys -- two males, two females -- went on exhibit in the zoo’s Ituri Forest for the first time late last week. The species is known for its grunting sound, high-speed traveling on all fours, and, in the males, a bright red scrotum.

“The fact they’ve survived and are so healthy, well-adjusted, active and curious says something about their strength of character,” Killmar said.