1. Monkeys are highly susceptible to diseases from human hands. They can die from bacteria transferred off your hand that has no ill effect on you.
2. Migration to human-populated areas to be fed increases the risk of dog attacks and road accidents.
3. Irregular feeding leads to an aggressive behavior towards humans and other species.
4. Contrary to the stereotype, bananas are not the preferred food of monkeys in the wild. Bananas, especially those containing pesticides, can be upsetting to the monkeys’ delicate digestive system and cause serious dental problems that can lead to eventual death.
5. Feeding creates a dangerous dependency on humans that diminishes the monkeys’ survival abilities.
6. Feeding interferes with the monkeys’ natural habits and upsets the balance of their lifestyle centered on eating wild fruits, seeds, small animals and insects.
7. Contact with humans facilitates poaching and the trade in illegal wildlife.
8. Pregnant females who are fed noting but bananas during their pregnancy will not give birth to healthy infants. The babies will be malnourished, or never develop to term, and die before birth.
9. Monkeys need to travel an average of 17 kilometers each day to be in good physical condition. If they know that food is available in a particular location, they will not leave that area.
10. Not only do we pass on diseases to animals when we feed them by hand, but they can pass diseases to us as well.
The monkeys do not realize any of this. Now YOU do. Don’t facilitate the extinction of one of Nature’s most amazing creatures for your own pleasure or financial gain. Please help save the monkeys by reporting anyone feeding the monkeys. If you are feeding the monkeys you now know why you should stop. If you don’t stop we owe it to the monkeys to publish your name with the local media.
There are a lot of problems in Manuel Antonio with people feeding the monkeys. In addition to bananas, people also feed the monkeys various types of people food which is causes high blood pressure and heart disease among the monkey population. Despite the warnings all around, people continue to feed them.
As you can imagine, I wouldn’t ever want to do anything to risk the well being of my little guys… I really love them you know. But I did kind of feed the monkeys once…but wait, let me explain…
As you know there are always lots of monkeys around my property. While I would like to think they are just coming to see me, the fact is there are mango and plantain trees all over the place. The monkeys come here daily to eat from their natural habitat.
While the monkeys jump from tree to tree all over our property, I have been fortunate to first live next to a plantain tree and now under a mango tree; therefore I get to hang with the monkeys almost every day. You can imagine how happy this makes me. And as the monkeys are already all around me, I have not had the need or the temptation to feed them.
But there is a good reason why I did finally feed them, really, I mean it…
One day as I was looking off my back porch, I noticed that a branch from a plantain tree had fallen, taking a whole bushel of plantains with it. These plantains were not yet ripe, and would have been difficult for the monkeys to see underneath all the leaves on the ground. When I saw the bushel of plantains, I thought it was a huge waste to just have them rot on the ground, and of course I wanted to make sure my monkeys didn’t go hungry. (Though on this property that is not really a concern as the fruit is a plenty. So plentiful in fact, that the monkeys just toss the mangos or plantains aside that are not up to their taste standard.)
As to not let the plantains go to waste, I decided to get a knife, jump off my back deck and cut the bushel of plantains off the tree. While this seemed like a genius idea at the time, I will tell you trying to get the plantains back up on my deck, and even harder, get my fat ass back up on the deck (with no steps or ladder) was not that easy. I should have thought that through a little more.
After I brought the plantains up on my deck, I covered them with a towel and headed inside to make some phone calls. I wanted to make sure that setting these plantains out for the monkeys wouldn’t be detrimental to them, and wouldn’t get my name put in the newspaper under the “wanted” section. Through my phone calls, I was assured by my local wild life experts that these plantains were part of their natural habitat, and as I hadn’t touched any of the plantains with my hands, they should be fine. Also, as these plantains were located on the monkeys’ natural food route, this would not upset their routine.
Delightful. See people, don’t judge me…I am helping the monkeys, not hurting them. Though truth be told, there were clearly some benefits for me in this situation too.
As Brooke was arriving in less than a week, I decided to continue to hide the plantains while they ripened and save them until Brooke was here so that she could share in the experience of monkey mayhem with me. And while she didn’t get to carry a monkey to safety, save a monkey’s life, or take on the facial characteristics of a monkey, she claims to be eternally grateful.
On the morning of the “unveiling,” we invited Linda, Kurt and Stephanie over for morning coffee and monkey watching, and were all amazed by the beauty and fun of it.
There is a downside to this story however… as you can imagine, as the plantains ripen, they bring with them a large amount of fruit flies and other bugs (you can see some in the pictures below if you look closely). By the second day, the deck was covered with thousands of bugs and Brooke and I were a little too afraid and grossed out to go out on the deck. However, I knew that I had to be tough and just deal with it…so on the third day, I took a towel, grabbed what was left of the bushel and threw it as hard as I could off my deck (while screaming “no me gusta”). Thankfully the bugs were gone a short time later.
I would have thought that after all I had done for Brooke, she would have volunteered to take care of the bug mess for me. Not so much….but she did stand safely inside the house and cheered me on. She is a giver, that Brooke.
Here are some photos and video of the monkey feast for you to enjoy. Have I mentioned that I love monkeys?
This little guy is sitting on the phone wire eyeing the plantains. This was before other monkeys showed up, they like the safety of the troop before heading into unknown territories.
But once all their friends are around, the feasting begins...
And what a feast it was...
Doesn't it look like he is covering his mouth after a little belch?
Here is a mama and her baby. You will see them in the video, sooo cute!!
