CERCOPAN

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 28 2009 | By: cercopan

by Sam Trull 

Good news from CERCOPAN…after a period of prolonger recovery, Akai, an adult male putty-nosed monkey returned to his group for the first time in almost a year yesterday!  The problem started when the females of his group decided to join together to form a coalition against Akai. This led to his becoming very low ranking in the dominance hierarchy and as a result gave him less access to the highest quality food. Female putty’s can be very tough and unforgiving to males, especially if they want to mate and the male is not interested which seems to be how this situation initially began! His dispute with the females led to a nasty tail wound and a vitamin deficiency. As soon as we noticed that Akai’s health was deteriorating we took the difficult decision to separate him from his group in order to receive treatments, be monitored more closely and be fed up.  

Akai has had many ups and downs throughout the past year of his recovery.  After treating his vitamin deficiency first, CERCOPAN staff were able to focus on his tail wound. Tail wounds are notoriously difficult to treat and often do not heal well… if at all. Akai’s injuries ultimately resulted in four different amputation procedures, before the wound healed perfectly.  Luckily, the treatment and all of the care and attention worked wonders and shortly after he began to turn the corner, although it still took many months for him to recover completely.  Once Akai was fully healed, we began the process of re-introducing him to his group.

When an adult monkey is taken out of their group, they can’t simply just be put straight back in, a gradual re-introduction process must take place in order to avoid as much aggression as possible. About a month ago, Akai was placed in a satellite enclosure next to his group, so they could see each other 24 hours a day and interact, but not actually occupy the same space.  This allowed time for the monkeys to gradually get used to one another again through mesh and also allowed CERCOPAN staff to monitor their behavior and make sure that positive interactions were increasing and aggressive interactions decreasing over time.

Yesterday it was decided that Akai’s behavioral exchanges with his group were going very well and that it was time to try everyone together again.  Luckily, all monkeys have been getting along great and better still  Akai has re-entered the group with a much higher rank than when he left!  We will be sure to keep everyone posted on his progress.  It’s been a long road to recovery for Akai, but after seeing him forage with his friends again, I know that it was well worth the wait.