Hundreds of rhesus macaque monkeys have lived near the Silver Springs tourist attraction at Ocala, Florida, since the 1930s. (All photos courtesy of Linda Wolfe.)

Last week IPPL Advisory Board member and macaque expert Dr. Linda Wolfe paid a visit to IPPL and shared with us her experiences doing behavioral research on the Silver Springs macaques. She was especially interested in the reproductive cycles of the females. Off and on for 14 years, starting in 1981, she would travel up and down the Silver River, her small motorized boat filled with peanuts in order to entice the monkeys to within note-taking distance.

Starting in 1981, Dr. Linda Wolfe would attract the Silver Springs monkeys with peanuts so she could take observations on the reproductive rates of the females.

Linda told us that, according to local legend, rhesus monkeys had been brought to the area to enliven the set of the movie Tarzan Finds a Son!, which was filmed at Silver Springs in March 1939. As it happens, the monkeys didn’t make it into the movie (“It wasn’t in the script!” Linda said), but they reportedly watched the filming and would screech with excitement whenever Johnny Wiessmuller would dive into the water. “I think they were warning him about the alligators,” Linda mused.

In fact, Linda found out that the monkeys had been brought to Silver Springs somewhat earlier by an entrepreneur named Colonel Tooey, who operated a Jungle Cruise boat ride. He built up an island in the shallow Silver River and planned to put monkeys there at some point in 1938, with the idea of boosting his revenue.

However, Colonel Tooey apparently thought he was getting a shipment of (non-swimming) squirrel monkeys. Instead, he got six rhesus monkeys. “The monkeys were swimming off the island before Colonel Tooey could get back to his boat!” Linda said.

Rhesus monkeys are curious and resourceful animals. Linda would try not to take her car out to her observation sites too often because the monkeys would mess with it (they thought the side-view mirrors were door handles…).

Supposedly, Colonel Tooey later brought in a few more monkeys, but for the most part, nature simply took her course: the monkeys multiplied and divided. A couple of troops total stuck around the banks of the Silver River near the Silver Springs, to the west of the original release site. They were regularly provisioned with monkey chow, fruit, and vegetables by Jungle Cruise boat captains who wanted to lure them closer to their customers.

Some monkeys headed east to where the Silver River flows into the Oklawaha River. There, the monkeys set up housekeeping within the Ocala National Forest. No one provided these monkeys with food, except when local people would throw them some dog kibble out of charity during the lean winter months. These monkeys were—and still are—on their own.

Linda’s map of the area. The monkeys quickly dispersed from the original release site (E) in the shallow Silver River. Provisioned monkeys (C and D) stayed near the springs (A). Troops of free-ranging monkeys (H) still live in the Ocala National Forest.

At the time Linda began her studies, there were perhaps 300 monkeys living near the Silver Springs and another 250 or so divided among two or three troops in the Ocala National Forest. Unfortunately, beginning in 1984, the then-Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission insisted upon the removal of large numbers of the monkeys.

Self-described “raccoon trappers” were deployed to carry out this mandate. At least 217 of the formerly free-ranging primates were trapped and sold to the Buckshire Corporation, which supplies animals to research labs. Others were sent to a zoo. Yet more were sent to an unknown fate.

A Silver Springs rhesus macaque mother and her baby.

“I would call Shirley in tears,” Linda remembered, as they tried to figure out a way to end this poorly-conceived plan. A huge public outcry along with national TV and newspaper attention eventually resulted in putting a halt to the trapping of such massive numbers of monkeys. As far as Linda knows, no such “overt” trapping of monkeys has yet resumed.

What will happen now to the monkeys of Ocala, Florida? At least those living in the National Forest have survived with minimal human intervention for decades; they would likely be able to continue doing so on the same terms. Those monkeys who were accustomed to being fed regularly could maybe pick up a tip or two from their neighbors. Hopefully, with minimum human interference, these hardy and adaptable macaques can continue to live out their days in Florida in peace.

We are pleased to host a trio of orangutan experts who will draw on their decades of expertise to give an illustrated lecture on the conservation crisis facing the great red ape.

The event will be held on Wednesday, June 19, at 7:00 PM. It will take place at Gage Hall, 4 Archdale Street, Charleston, SC. This lecture is free and open to the public. You can RSVP to the event on Facebook.

Leif Cocks with a baby orangutan.

Our guest speakers will be:

• Leif Cocks, who was head orangutan keeper and then curator at Perth Zoo for 25 years and is now president of The Orangutan Project, which supports orangutan conservation, rainforest protection, local community partnerships, and the rehabilitation and reintroduction of displaced orangutans back to the wild.
• Dr. Gary Shapiro, who was the first person to teach sign language to free-ranging orangutans in the late 1970s and is now the president of the Orang Utan Republik Foundation, an organization that aims to save wild orangutans via public education.
• Garry Sundin, of Orangutan Odysseys, who will show how eco-tourism can promote orangutan conservation and describe his upcoming Trans Borneo Challenge fundraising trek.

These three traveling orangutan experts will share with the public some of the expertise they have gained from their collective decades of learning about, caring for, and advocating for the great red ape.

Gary Shapiro with the orangutan Princess and her child

This event is also part of IPPL’s 40^th anniversary year celebration. When I spoke last month with Gary Shapiro, he remarked that this year marks his own 40th anniversary—of working with orangutans! He began by teaching Aazk, a juvenile female orangutan at what was then the Fresno City Zoo, to communicate via a representational language.

I hope you can join us for what will surely be a fascinating evening!

All four gibbons at their former home at the Silver Springs attraction in Florida. (Thanks to their long-time dedicated caregiver Joann Zeliff for this picture!)

Say hello to the Silver Springs Four: Glenda and Gary, their daughter Kendra, and their son Thai.

Glenda

Cheri pats Glenda’s toes, minutes after the family’s arrival.

Glenda is a sweetheart and very people-friendly. Minutes after they arrived yesterday, she was allowing our staff to pet her toes. And twice today (both times squeaking meekly) she has offered me her belly to blow kisses on. But she’s active and inquisitive: she was the first to start exploring their new outdoor enclosures this morning.

Gary 

After they arrived yesterday, Gary was the first to take a banana.

Like Glenda, Gary was probably born around 1975, and they arrived together at Silver Springs in 1983. Gary is a little guy—rather smaller than his long-time mate—but with a lovely blond coat. He seems a little on the timid side but has a good appetite. We already know: Gary likes beets!

Kendra

Kendra already shows signs of being quite a spunky gibbon gal!

The full, official name of Glenda and Gary’s 13-year-old daughter is “Kenabalou;” her previous nickname was “Kenny,” but we have decided to tweak this slightly and now call her “Kendra.” She was persuaded to stick her nose outside her night quarters this morning by the hope of pulling our caregiver Hardy’s hair.

Thai

Thai is our new “Buddha Boy”!

Their 12-year-old son Thai is maybe a little more shy than the others and was the last to emerge from the family’s night quarters this afternoon. Thai may be a big boy, but his dad can still boss him around: yesterday we saw Thai get out of the way repeatedly so that Dad could sit in his preferred spot on their corner perch.

Gary (left) may be smaller than his son Thai, but daddy is still the boss: here, Gary is displacing Thai from his preferred perch in the corner.

This gibbon family came to us from the classic Silver Springs tourist attraction in Ocala, Florida. The facility is disbanding its animal operations, though they will continue to use the place as a venue for concerts and special events. We were delighted when we learned that the management had chosen to re-home their four gibbons to IPPL.

The entrance to the gibbons’ former home, in Ocala, Florida.

In a way these gibbons are—literally—already part of the IPPL family: our own Elizabeth, who came here in 1985, is Glenda and Gary’s daughter. Now we all know where she got her lovely blonde coat: it’s just like her dad’s!

Gary has a handsome blond coat that glows in the sun.

This past Sunday, two of our animal caregivers, Meg and Hardy, drove down to Florida to pick up the family. Although Glenda and Gary had previously lived on an island as part of the Silver Springs jungle cruise, since the late 1990s they had been living with their growing family in large enclosures elsewhere in the park. More recently, they had been transferred to catch cages in anticipation of the move.

The dedicated Silver Springs staff (flanked by IPPL caregivers Meg on the left and Hardy on the right) bid a somewhat tearful farewell to their beloved gibbons.

The gibbons were loaded into three travel crates for the trip, one for mom and dad and one for each of the kids. Glenda and Gary went into their crate willingly, but the kids had to be darted. Their former caregivers said good-bye—and the IPPL team was off.

Hardy (left) and Brandon unload Gary and Glenda’s travel crate and carry them over to their night quarters in IPPL’s Gibbon House #8.

After an uneventful six hour drive, the IPPL crew arrived. The family was quickly placed into Gibbon House #8, which has two adjoining indoor night quarters. Michael and Cathy, the previous occupants, were moved into Gibbon House #9 a little over a week ago.

Their gibbon neighbors have been showing a lot of interest in the newcomers, especially Elsa. I think she has been especially dramatic today with her vocalizations, foot-drumming, and other raucous territorial displays.

Elsa has been putting on a fine territorial display for her new gibbon neighbors!

This pile of shredded veggies (foreground) is courtesy of Elsa and lies directly below the spot in her runway that is the closest she can get to the new family. As part of her territorial display, Elsa has already been observed to “eat aggressively” in Glenda’s general direction.

I was curious to know how soon the new family would start asserting itself with its own territorial vocalizations. Earlier in the morning, Glenda had been heard to make a few tentative, surprised “hoo!” calls, but that was all. Well, around 12:15 today our gibbons started to chorus, beginning with the gang in the main gibbon yard some distance away and then joined by the nearby inhabitants of Gibbon Houses #7 and #9.

Glenda listened intently to the calls of the other IPPL gibbons.

Glenda was calling to the other IPPL gibbons this afternoon.

 I think Silver Springs Four are adjusting just fine!

When major brands like Sears and Burger King and Kmart use monkeys in their commercials, are they going to be selling the idea that monkeys make cute pets? Maybe that’s what viewers will take away, more so than the latest burger special or jewelry promotion or rewards program.  

(The Kmart ad points out that they don’t actually sell monkeys. I guess we can be grateful for that much.)

No one knows for sure, but a common estimate is that 15,000 primates are kept as pets in the U.S. Lots of these animals are regarded as surrogate children and “pampered” in unnatural ways—dressed in frilly outfits with diapers and fed human junk food.

Until they start to bite or act out in other wild ways.

Then come what are politely referred to as the “alterations.” Teeth are pulled—sometimes the whole set, not just the canines. Males are neutered. Capuchin monkeys, like the ones featured in these recent ads, are known for their high intelligence and manual dexterity; they may have fingers amputated by their owners to keep them from getting into mischief.

Or perhaps they will simply be abandoned by their owner, once the inconvenience becomes too great, perhaps sent to a roadside zoo. Apparently, Justin Bieber is just going to let his former pet monkey Mally (below) stay behind in Germany at an “undisclosed location” instead of going to the Jungle Friends sanctuary here in the U.S. At Jungle Friends, Mally would at least be with other capuchins; about 70 percent of the rescued primates at Jungle Friends are former pets like Mally.

Primates who end up as pets may have been removed from their mothers as young as three days of age. In the wild, young capuchins stay with their mothers for two or three years.

That’s what makes using a monkey to sell Mother’s Day specials so crazy. Monkey madness, indeed—and not in a good way.

“I already knew I loved animals,” says Laura. “I had worked with dogs and cats, but I thought it would be an opportunity to do something with animals I hadn’t done before.” Laura had had experience working at the local no-kill animal shelter, Pet Helpers, but she didn’t know anything about primates.

Tong happily accepts a little treat from Laura.

That was over four years ago. She has since come to learn a great deal about primates, of course, both captive and wild. She has also learned about the different gibbon personalities here at IPPL.

For instance, she used to spend lots of time with Whoop-Whoop; he was the first gibbon she fell in love with—the way he wanted to rest his foot on her shoulder or look through her pockets. After he was paired with Courtney, though, it became harder to get quality time with him, since Courtney prefers to have all Laura’s attention to herself. Courtney loves it when Laura plays “chase” with her, running back and forth alongside Courtney and Whoop-Whoop’s outdoor enclosure.

And Laura got to know Cathy, who was very shy around our staff for years, especially while still living with her parents. But Laura was patient. Cathy was paired with Michael last year, and her personality made a significant shift in the process. “It’s been nice to see her open up since coming out from under her parents’ wing,” says Laura. Cathy even accepts food from Laura now.

Igor has come to appreciate her, too. A couple of years ago when we had to re-do the floor in his house, Laura sat with him all day long to keep him from getting too nervous: “After that, he’s been very comfortable and sweet with me. He talks to me, and he’ll let me brush him for however long I do it.”

Laura hangs a lunch bucket up for a watchful Elizabeth.

April is National Volunteer Month—and Laura is everything a volunteer should be: hardworking, reliable, and dedicated. She helps with daily tasks like feeding, cleaning enclosures, and providing enrichment, but she has also made herself available for special projects. Like last year’s biennial Supporters’ Meeting, an intense weekend-long event that brings about 100 visitors to our sanctuary. Laura’s familiarity with our animals and procedures was very welcome, as she helped to make sure that everyone—gibbons and people alike—had a safe and enjoyable experience.

Laura, wearing a green IPPL shirt, was a big help to our regular staff at last year’s Supporters’ Meeting, a weekend-long event featuring speakers from around that world that we hold every other year at the sanctuary.

After graduating, Laura was the full-time manager at a large local kennel, but last fall she went back to school part time, taking a class in organic chemistry, to start working toward a vet tech degree. This semester she continued to work part time and loaded up on the classes, taking courses in organic chemistry, animal nutrition, veterinary terminology, psychology, and ethics. But she still volunteers here every other week!

(Note that when people’s lives get complicated by work and school they usually cut back on volunteering!)

Helen loves it when Laura brings by fresh bamboo stalks to play with.

When she’s not busy at work or school, she and her mini-dachshund Olive and three cats make for a happy family. When she comes home at night, Laura will greet Olive with “Eee, eee, eee!” sounds like the ones our gibbon Tong likes to make. Olive gets it.

Laura helps with a variety of daily tasks, like fixing the gibbons’ lunch.

Thank you, Laura, for being an A#1 volunteer!

One popular way to see Gibraltar’s world-famous “Rock Apes” (they’re actually Barbary macaque monkeys) is via cable car.

They are clearly, of course, monkeys, not apes, even though they don’t have tails. What is not clear is how this small (non-native) population of monkeys got to Gibraltar. “The most likely source was introduction by the Moors around 700 AD,” Keri told us.

“During my time in Morocco, I was witness to the progressive scale of what can happen when Barbary macaques become habituated. In the Rif Mountains the macaques clearly want nothing to do with us and stay well away. In Ouzoud, the macaque group is becoming more confident and associate people with food, though not all the macaques are interested. In Azrou, the ‘Tourist Group’ monkeys clearly associate people with food, and the youngsters accept this as the norm.”

Gibraltar’s monkeys are beyond habituated to humans: they’re urbanized.

But in Gibraltar, close human-monkey contact has been happening for centuries. “This has resulted in the monkeys’ becoming ‘urbanized,’ the next step up from being ‘habituated,’” Keri explained

Keri encountered one particularly memorable monkey who had certainly taken things to the next level. “Just around the corner from my hotel, I met Damien, an adult male macaque. Damien had been ousted from his local group, which has four other males. Now he chooses to spend most of his time hanging out on Main Street and hijacking anyone with a plastic bag!

Damien the Barbary macaque has learned to survive on the streets of Gibraltar.

“His strategy is simply to approach people quickly and confidently. The majority of people drop the bag and, on one occasion that I saw, the giant bar of chocolate they decided to produce right in front of him.”

Damien’s strategy: the confident approach…

…the startled victim….

…and the reward is his!

Unfortunately, Damien is just one example of what many of Gibraltar’s monkeys do to acquire tasty high-calorie treats. This is in addition to raiding insecure rubbish bins and other sites for leftover human food. The over-fed macaques go on to produce more offspring than this urban area can readily support. Sometime the government response to these “excess” monkeys can be drastic.

A diet of junk food is not going to be good for Damien–or any other macaque.

Keri recalled, “I last visited Gibraltar five years ago when news got out of a proposed cull of the macaques. Thankfully, the monkeys now have friends in high places, excuse the pun. In 2011 a new government came into power, and its new Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo is opposed to any culling of the macaques. In 2008, he actually likened culling the macaques to Disney killing Mickey! The new Minister for the Environment is Dr. John Cortes, the former head of the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, a world expert in Barbary macaques. The new government is soon to release a new ‘ape’ management plan and a public campaign. The provisional title is ‘Get our monkeys back to nature.’”

Signs like these are common, but they have not helped.

While Keri was in Gibraltar, he also met with Eric Shaw, head of the “ape” management team. “Eric was able to show me one of the main problems in town: rubbish. Gibraltar is incredibly lucky to have nightly rubbish collections. Unfortunately, some people don’t understand that if they put their rubbish out during the day it is too tempting for a lazy macaque. We all love cold pizza, why shouldn’t they? These are the same people who complain that their rubbish was strewn all over the street and that all the nice, ripe plums were stolen off their tree.

“There are warning signs around town and a fine threatened for anyone leaving rubbish out. Unfortunately, these are ignored much as the signs not to feed the macaques up on the nature reserve are: fines for feeding the macaques on the Upper Rock have been in place since 1921—but to this day not a single person has been fined!”

However, there is hope that Gibraltar’s citizens will be able to live more in harmony with their monkey neighbors. “Eric was able to show me several new strategies that are being implemented,” Keri told us. “These include additional feeding stations away from the public areas, new signage, and clearance of the scrub to create areas for the macaques to forage.”

With a little help from their friends, the Barbary macaques of Gibraltar—and their wild cousins in northern Africa—should be able to thrive, with a minimum of human interference.

It turned out to be from one of his admirers, Cynthia, who had visited IPPL this past February.

On opening the box, we found a cute little primate-printed pouch, and inside that was a “junior” brush and comb set just for Igor.

She also wrote him a sweet little note on the back of a photo that a friend had taken of Cynthia with Igor inside his house.

Cynthia knows that one of Igor’s favorite activities is being groomed by his friends. Grooming is a universally appreciated primate pastime, but because Igor lives alone due to his psychological problems, it’s especially important that his caregivers spend extra time grooming him. So this week they’ve been giving the new “equipment” a good workout, grooming his forearms, shins, sides, and lower back, as well as his head.

With the increase in humidity around here, as we warm up toward summer, Igor sometimes wakes up with a serious case of the frizzies, so this brush couldn’t have come at a better time. 

We’ve found that Igor prefers the softer brush over the comb. But he loves his new brush so much that he is letting people groom him who don’t normally engage with Igor this way—including our caregiver Brandon (whom Igor can be wary of, as he is of some males) and a new volunteer who gave our caregiver Meg a hand a few days ago. Sometimes he gets so relaxed he starts to snooze!

So from Igor and all the staff at the Gibbon House #3 beauty salon, “Thank you, Cynthia!”

(And, by the way, Shirley very much enjoyed the delicious cookies that Cynthia included in the package, so she says thank you, too!)

That’s because there’s a knock-on effect. Adoring fans go to great lengths to imitate their favorite stars. That includes trying to accessorize like them, buying the same hair care products, clothes, and jewelry. And when animals are viewed simply as property, a pet—even (or especially) an exotic pet—is just another accessory to be purchased. And that boosts the miserable trade in pet monkeys.

Justin Bieber tried to bring his pet baby monkey Mally into Germany with him. The animal has been quarantined and may be confiscated.

In Mally’s case, the monkey is drawing even more attention than her human star, as she has become the subject of a legal tussle.

Mally, a gift to the 19 year old pop star on his most recent birthday, was confiscated on March 28 when Bieber failed to produce appropriate customs paperwork after flying into Munich with her via a private plane. If he fails to come up with the required documents within a month, Mally could be permanently confiscated and perhaps sent to a zoo.

Although she is now in quarantine at a pet shelter in Germany, the 15-week-old monkey is apparently (as she was when in the custody of Bieber) still without any companions of her own species.

This is a cruel fate for any monkey. Nearly all primates are group-living species and need to grow up in a socially-appropriate world in order to develop normally.

Baby monkeys bred for the pet trade are often taken from their mothers when weeks or even a few days old. Raised without the company of other monkeys, they don’t learn the appropriate social behaviors unique to each species. This means that, whenever the primate is given up after reaching maturity and becoming too aggressive (as is often the case), it is really difficult to integrate them back other monkeys. Pet monkeys are often doomed to live their lives as social misfits.

Capuchins like this one at the Jungle Friends primate sanctuary are one of the more common primates in the pet trade. Mally will hopefully be sent here to live with other members of her species.

A petition has been started to have Mally repatriated to the United States and sent to Jungle Friends, an excellent primate sanctuary in Florida, which specializes in New World monkeys like Mally. Hopefully, this will happen before she gets much older.

So in the future, when it comes to celebrities, remember: just buy the mousse, not the monkey!

The Easter Bunny’s helpers (a.k.a. the IPPL animal care staff) decorated a basket of colorful hard-boiled eggs with azaleas from the sanctuary property.

Of course, Mr. Bunny had help from the IPPL animal caregivers. They came along with a wheelbarrow full of hay and over three dozen eggs. Meg distributed armloads of hay with eggs hidden in each “nest.” Cheri would then sprinkle peanuts and raisins in it for added foraging fun.

Maui discovers his and Speedy’s Easter eggs!

Our gibbons were enthralled by the eggs. Last year, we distributed hard-boiled eggs, too, but didn’t get around to dying them. They were popular, but not greeted with the same excitement as this year’s batch.

Mmmm–Peppy doesn’t mind that he has egg on his face. (Note: the pink thing in his hand is an egg, the pink thing in his mouth is his tongue!)

Some of our gibbons, like Michelle and Michael, would stretch out their arms toward the approaching wheelbarrow and shake their hands excitedly. Helen would hardly even let Meg put the hay into the enclosure in peace!

The dye was set with vinegar, and maybe that’s why many of our gibbons enjoyed licking the eggs for minutes at a time before cracking them open with their teeth.

Gus knows just what to do.

And the gibbons really liked the hay, too tossing it around (like Courtney) or even nibbling on it (like Dianne). And when our staff tried to hose the hay away a couple of days later, some gibbons, like Robbie and Helen, kept trying to grab it back.

Donny can’t wait for Meg to distribute his and E.T.’s share!

Not to be left out, our otters got some Easter eggs, too. Agape actually laid on top of her companion Satu’s blue egg while she finished her own. Then she ate his, too.

It doesn’t look like Agape is going to let Satu taste his pretty blue egg at all.

Agape may have taken assertiveness training from nearby Jade; Jade only let her mate Palu-Palu enjoy her leftover scraps!

Jade (left), who is serious about her food, only permitted Palu-Palu to eat her leftover bits of egg (but Palu-Palu is used to this by now!).

Barbary macaques are amazingly adaptable primates.

Perhaps the most challenging natural environment where Keri encountered these macaques came on the last leg of his North African journey: the clusters of steep, white peaks known as the calcareous massif. The slopes of the mountain called Jebel Kelti sometimes rise so abruptly they hardly qualify as slopes at all. Yet, here is where Keri encountered the wildest macaques he had seen yet.

Part of Morocco’s calcareous massif; Barbary macaques make their home here, too.

Keri was introduced to this formation by his newfound friend, Ahmed El Harrad, deputy director of Barbary Macaque Conservation in the Rif (one of two groups in the region, along with the Moroccan Primate Conservation Foundation, that IPPL is helping to support). On his first morning hike, Keri reported, they came upon a small area of cork oak woodland. “We found fresh signs of Barbary macaque presence: scat, foraging traces, and even a footprint in the mud. Unfortunately, the macaques evaded us. Unlike the macaques I had been around elsewhere in the Atlas mountains, these are truly wild monkeys.”

Near the summit, they encountered goatherds and their dogs, but no monkeys. “Suddenly, Ahmed, with his eagle eyes, spotted one perched precariously on the side of a cliff. It was literally a tiny dot, and even through the zoom on my camera I could only see it when it moved. I then started to spot more, and we realized the whole group was there.

Spot the monkey in the dead center of this picture!

“In the late afternoon the goatherds started to move off the mountain. We waited as long as we could, but eventually we had to start back down before it got too dark. As you can probably guess, the macaques started to show up on the ridge of the hill, watching us leave. They finally had their mountain back to themselves!”

The next morning, Keri had an alarming vision of what could be the fate of Morocco’s macaques: a few remnant groups cut off from one another by rampant habitat destruction. The village of Boojmeel, just south of the massif’s Jebel Moussa, has macaques living nearby, and a helpful shepherd was able to point Keri to them within 10 minutes.

“Once again they were on a rock face, but as I was closer this time I was able to see that there was an abundance of plants and small grassy areas where the macaques could forage,” Keri reported. “It is amazing to see how agile and surefooted the macaques are, an essential skill if you live on a cliff!”

The Barbary macaques near the village of Boojmeel have been isolated from the rest of their species by habitat destruction.

Unfortunately, excessive quarrying in adjacent parts of the countryside means that these macaques have become completely isolated from their neighbors. “BMCRif has been carrying out education programs in the local school and is supporting the villagers in their fight to prevent the quarries moving into their area,” Keri told us.

Extensive quarrying in this part of Morocco has destroyed the landscape and isolated populations of macaques.

The final stop on Keri’s North African journey was at the base of Jebel Moussa. “It runs right down to the Mediterranean and is thought to be one of the legendary Pillars of Hercules, the other being the rock of Gibraltar,” said Keri.

“We parked up on a beach where I could see Gibraltar in the distance. Once again, Ahmed’s eagle eyes spotted a macaque on the cliff above us. He just seemed to be enjoying the view, perhaps looking across to Gibraltar and wondering how his cousins are getting on.”

A famous population of (non-native) Barbary macaques has made an uneasy living on Gibraltar for hundreds of years. Keri planned to check out their situation next.