Plight of the Spider Monkey
Daisha Williams | December 2017
Shaky walked across the floor toward me as soon as I sat in his enclosure, and since he was a spider monkey, it was an odd looking sight. Spider monkeys have limbs so long that their hands basically brush the ground as they walk, and they also have a prehensile tail almost three feet long, so when they do walk, they do not balance on their arms like other monkeys, they use their tail. I watched Shaky approach me this way not knowing what to expect, it was my first encounter with a monkey during my internship at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, and actually my first encounter with a monkey period. He came right up to me, climbed into my lap, wrapped both arms and legs around me and almost instantly fell asleep. I recognized immediately that I was looking at a very sad story. This monkey snoozing in my lap was not wild.
Shaky came to the center as an orphaned baby two years prior to my arrival. It was believed that hunters killed his mother with a slingshot because he arrived missing an eye, with a rock lodged in his eye socket. After his mother was killed, he was sold as a pet and kept up until he was 4 to 5 months old. With the help of some locals who noticed and police, Shaky’s owner was prosecuted and he was brought to the Jaguar Rescue Center. The rock was surgically removed and he began his process of rehabilitation back into the wild.
However, it was quickly realized that the typical rehabilitation process, which worked on all the other monkeys who came to the center, would never work on Shaky. Since he was kept as a pet when he was a baby, he became extremely accustomed to humans and continued to find his way back to the center when taken to the primary forest for release. Every morning when I arrived, he would be waiting at the gate to be let in. From that point on, I began to find out that Shaky was not a unique case
Furry, intelligent, and long-lived these animals appeal to us, our closest relatives, as pets. While this may not seem like a big deal, primates are much more intelligent than your average hamster. Of all primates the spider monkey is the most intelligent and most endangered with about 200 of the species remaining. While you may think a monkey like Shaky would be cute as a pet, this is the same animal that has the ability to count, to intentionally deceive other group members, and to recognize themselves in a mirror.
Cute as they are, they become withdrawn, difficult, aggressive, and physically and emotionally ill when forced to live in a human habitat. In fact, Spider monkeys typically do not like people at all and they shouldn’t. They are hunted for food by some and captured for the pet trade others resulting in an 80 percent decline over the past 10 years, making humans the top predator of this species where they have caused more deaths than any of the Spider monkeys natural predators. They are very social animals with complex behavior and humans cannot meet their biological needs. Once taken in as a pet, their chances for being released back to the wild decreases significantly. They often wind up dying from the harsh elements that are foreign to them due to the lack of survival skills. They face near extinction if international trade is not closely controlled.
The sale and exchange of the spider monkey, holds further implications than just extinction however. It is an issue at the heart of the relationship between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. We have learned recently that large mammals serve as ecosystem engineers, shaping the structure and species of their environment making them keystone species. In the rainforest, spider monkeys are a great example of keystone species. They are the most active seed dispersers for plants, as they are the only fruit-eating primate capable of routinely swallowing and passing those seeds. And because they spend 75% of their time foraging and their range is so long, they are constantly flourishing their environment.
Their decrease in numbers also holds implications for climate change. The tree species that hold the most carbon in the forest are the ones with seeds that are dispersed by the black handed spider monkey and they are typically rare per hectare. With pet trade on the rise, the rare trees over time are likely to be replaced by trees that are less diverse and that have much lower carbon density. Since carbon sequestration is a global ecosystem service, we can thank Spider monkeys for creating the most carbon-dense forests. Thus, the loss of this species from the forest not only removes a keystone species vital to their ecosystem, but it also leads to a less stable environment with more carbon dioxide.
With climate change looming over us, we’ve become used to the narrative in which a growing number of species are endangered, nearing extinction. A ballooning human population, habitat destruction to make way for development, ocean acidification, and soil, water, and air pollution are all wiping species off the face of the Earth. Little did we know, keeping monkey’s as pets is causing some of the same effects.
Daisha Williams | December 2017
Shaky walked across the floor toward me as soon as I sat in his enclosure, and since he was a spider monkey, it was an odd looking sight. Spider monkeys have limbs so long that their hands basically brush the ground as they walk, and they also have a prehensile tail almost three feet long, so when they do walk, they do not balance on their arms like other monkeys, they use their tail. I watched Shaky approach me this way not knowing what to expect, it was my first encounter with a monkey during my internship at the Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, and actually my first encounter with a monkey period. He came right up to me, climbed into my lap, wrapped both arms and legs around me and almost instantly fell asleep. I recognized immediately that I was looking at a very sad story. This monkey snoozing in my lap was not wild.
Shaky came to the center as an orphaned baby two years prior to my arrival. It was believed that hunters killed his mother with a slingshot because he arrived missing an eye, with a rock lodged in his eye socket. After his mother was killed, he was sold as a pet and kept up until he was 4 to 5 months old. With the help of some locals who noticed and police, Shaky’s owner was prosecuted and he was brought to the Jaguar Rescue Center. The rock was surgically removed and he began his process of rehabilitation back into the wild.
However, it was quickly realized that the typical rehabilitation process, which worked on all the other monkeys who came to the center, would never work on Shaky. Since he was kept as a pet when he was a baby, he became extremely accustomed to humans and continued to find his way back to the center when taken to the primary forest for release. Every morning when I arrived, he would be waiting at the gate to be let in. From that point on, I began to find out that Shaky was not a unique case
Furry, intelligent, and long-lived these animals appeal to us, our closest relatives, as pets. While this may not seem like a big deal, primates are much more intelligent than your average hamster. Of all primates the spider monkey is the most intelligent and most endangered with about 200 of the species remaining. While you may think a monkey like Shaky would be cute as a pet, this is the same animal that has the ability to count, to intentionally deceive other group members, and to recognize themselves in a mirror.
Cute as they are, they become withdrawn, difficult, aggressive, and physically and emotionally ill when forced to live in a human habitat. In fact, Spider monkeys typically do not like people at all and they shouldn’t. They are hunted for food by some and captured for the pet trade others resulting in an 80 percent decline over the past 10 years, making humans the top predator of this species where they have caused more deaths than any of the Spider monkeys natural predators. They are very social animals with complex behavior and humans cannot meet their biological needs. Once taken in as a pet, their chances for being released back to the wild decreases significantly. They often wind up dying from the harsh elements that are foreign to them due to the lack of survival skills. They face near extinction if international trade is not closely controlled.
The sale and exchange of the spider monkey, holds further implications than just extinction however. It is an issue at the heart of the relationship between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. We have learned recently that large mammals serve as ecosystem engineers, shaping the structure and species of their environment making them keystone species. In the rainforest, spider monkeys are a great example of keystone species. They are the most active seed dispersers for plants, as they are the only fruit-eating primate capable of routinely swallowing and passing those seeds. And because they spend 75% of their time foraging and their range is so long, they are constantly flourishing their environment.
Their decrease in numbers also holds implications for climate change. The tree species that hold the most carbon in the forest are the ones with seeds that are dispersed by the black handed spider monkey and they are typically rare per hectare. With pet trade on the rise, the rare trees over time are likely to be replaced by trees that are less diverse and that have much lower carbon density. Since carbon sequestration is a global ecosystem service, we can thank Spider monkeys for creating the most carbon-dense forests. Thus, the loss of this species from the forest not only removes a keystone species vital to their ecosystem, but it also leads to a less stable environment with more carbon dioxide.
With climate change looming over us, we’ve become used to the narrative in which a growing number of species are endangered, nearing extinction. A ballooning human population, habitat destruction to make way for development, ocean acidification, and soil, water, and air pollution are all wiping species off the face of the Earth. Little did we know, keeping monkey’s as pets is causing some of the same effects.