Orphaned Howler Rehabilitation Program
Our Orphaned Howler Rehabilitation Program takes approximately 3.5 years to complete with most monkeys joining us as infants. The majority of our rescues were orphaned due to unsafe power distribution, dog attacks, and car accidents – all preventable. Sadly, most infants who lost their mothers due to electrocution often succumb to internal injuries and never make it past the first stage of our program. When the infants are first rescued, they spend a period of quarantine inside our wildlife clinic where they are monitored 24 hours a day. Those that need veterinary care for injures are treated and remain under veterinary supervision until they are healed and ready to leave our clinic. The infants are then slowly introduced to the other monkeys inside our Infant Nursery and often bond very quickly with the other monkeys. At times, the first stage of our program is so filled with infant howlers that there can be 20 or more infants in the large indoor/outdoor enclosure. The large group naturally separates into younger infants and older infants. After about a year, the little ones have grown, learned essential climbing and social skills, and no longer need to be hand-fed infants formula. The older infants then transition onto the next stage in our program, the Juvenile Nursery.
During this next stage in their rehabilitation, the monkeys are moved into a much taller outdoor enclosure and no longer have any contact with humans (with the exception of essential veterinary care). At this point, the monkeys will also be introduced to some new food items and more advanced enrichment items. A basic social hierarchy is formed and potential future leaders take on alpha roles within the group. After another year has passed, the group is carefully assessed by our veterinary team to decide which monkeys will graduate to the 3rd stage in our program, the Pre-release Enclosure. Some of the smaller monkeys might stay in the 2nd stage of our program to be given a little more time to gain weight. Those monkeys will join the older infants as they move through the program to the next step.
Our Pre-release Enclosure is the last stage that takes place at our rescue center and it is where the monkeys face their greatest challenge – they must prove that they will be able to survive in the wild. They are continually assessed, ensuring they are gaining sufficient weight, that they are behaving appropriately (as wild monkeys would), and that they have all the foraging and climbing skills they will need in the forest. Not every monkey is eligible for release. Some, especially those that were previously illegal pets, form an unnatural attachment to humans and can never be released.
Once another year has passed and the monkeys have shown that they can survive in the wild, they are transported to our release location, deep inside the forest. It is at this 4th and final stage of our program that the orphans will begin their new lives. After spending several weeks inside our release enclosure getting used to their new surroundings, the hatch at the top of the enclosure is opened and the monkeys are free to explore their new home. For several days, we continue to provide food inside the enclosure, but it is very rare that any of the monkeys stay around as they are very eager to start their new lives in the forest.
