Monkey Sanctuary Trust is a unique environmental charity dedicated to:

Woolly monkey welfare, including the welfare, conservation and survival of primates, particularly woolly monkeys and capuchin monkeys.
Capuchin monkey welfare, including Working to end the primate and monkey trade and abuse of primates and monkeys in captivity.
Conserving natural habitats of woolly and capuchin monkeys through education and sustainable living.
monkey rescue, including promoting the rehabilitation of rescued woolly and capuchin monkeys and primates to natural habitats.

Woolly Monkey - what is it?

The woolly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha) is one of the largest and most beautiful of the South American primates. They live in the middle and upper Amazon basin to the west of the rivers Negro and Tapajos. There are four recognised sub-species of woolly monkey. These are mountain or long-haired woolly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha lugens), the brown woolly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha poepiggii), the grey woolly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha cana) and the brown-headed woolly monkey (lagothrix lagothricha lagothricha).

Woolly monkeys are arboreal (meaning tree-dwelling), spending most of their time high in the canopy of the trees and rarely venturing to the forest floor.

Woolly monkeys have evolved in a way which enables them to exploit this tree-top niche, to travel easily along narrow limbs, to reach nuts, seedpods and fruits at the end of branches, to leap between gaps safely and even to sleep securely 150 feet above the ground.

Capuchin Monkey - what is it?

Capuchins were named after capuchin monks because the dark fur that forms a cap on their heads and extends down in 'side-burns' resembles the cowl or headdress of the capuchin priests.

Capuchin monkeys are one of the most intelligent and adaptable of all South American primates. The first capuchins (Cebus species) appeared 16.3 million years ago in South America and, like all monkeys capuchin monkeys share about 97% of their DNA with humans. All capuchin species are neotropical, in other words capuchin monkeys are mainly found in northern and central South America. Within this range only the howler monkey is as widespread, and the black-capped capuchin or tufted capuchin has the widest distribution of any new world monkey, as capuchin monkeys are found in every South American country except Uruguay and Chile.

Monkey Sanctuary Trust is based at The Monkey Sanctuary in Looe, Cornwall, UK. The Monkey Sanctuary is home to a social colony of Woolly monkeys and a group of rescued ex-pet Capuchin monkeys. The Trust provides advice and support for primate, woolly and capuchin monkey rescue centres and sanctuaries around the world.

Each year the Monkey Sanctuary Trust educates thousands of visitors on monkey life in the wild and in captivity, on the ethics and problems of captivity for woolly monkeys, about ideas for rehabilitation as well as other animal welfare and conservation issues for woolly and capuchin monkeys.

Monkey Sanctuary Trust Home page

The Monkey Sanctuary Trust's Work

History of the Monkey Sanctuary

Contact the monkey sanctuary

Support the woolly monkeys

Adopt a woolly or capuchin Monkey

International Adoptions of capuchin monkeys

Donate to help woolly monkeys

Volunteer to help the Monkay Sanctuary

Become a woolly monkey Keeper for the Day

Jobs at the monkey sanctuary

The Monkeys - woolly capuchin

The Bats that live alongside the woolly monkeys

Woolly monkey Rehabilitation Programme

About Woolly Monkeys

About Capuchin Monkeys

Wildzone - all about capuchins and woollies

Monkey Rehabilitation Programme

Monkey Sanctuary Visits and Talks

Monkey Sanctuary - Educational Resources

Sanctuary Links

Summer 2000

The start of the new millennium heralds a new era in the evolution of The Monkey Sanctuary and the monkeys here.

The Monkey Sanctuary started its life as a rescue centre, taking in wild-born monkeys that had suffered from the prolific zoo and pet trade of the time. Those monkeys were offered a chance to develop their own lives as a natural social group. Through the years as more generations of woolly monkeys were born and lived their life here, we realise that they should not have an indefinite future in captivity. We hoped that rehabilitation might offer a happier future, however this has proved politically and practically to be an extremely complex issue. Recently a new woolly monkey specific virus, WMHBV, has been discovered in our colony and in many other captive woolly monkeys in Europe and the US.

This virus, WMHBV, has several implications:

Monkey life at the Sanctuary:

Until summer 1999 our female and young monkeys would come out of their enclosures to forage and climb trees in the Sanctuary gardens. Although, as far as we know, this virus cannot pass on to humans, for health and safety reasons we thought it is better to be safe than sorry and decided to stop letting the monkeys out amongst the visitors.

This is the first year since 1964 that the Sanctuary monkeys are no longer allowed to explore the gardens. This freedom greatly enriched their lives here in Cornwall. To compensate for this restriction, we are building a monkey proof fence that will enclose two giant beech trees on the Sanctuary grounds. We hope to finish this fence by the end of this summer and are still fundraising to finance the last stages of construction.

Rehabilitation:

The virus also has big implications for our rehabilitation plans. We cannot risk the possibility of spreading the WMHBV to monkeys in other parts of the world. Until we know more about the virus and have found its origins, we cannot let our monkeys be part of any rehabilitation project. We will keep exploring better options for our monkeys and are still working to set up a rescue and rehabilitation centre for woolly monkeys from the illegal pet trade in Brazil.

Breeding policy:

In recent years we have justified continuing to allow the monkeys to breed as long as there has been a reasonable chance that we might one day offer the monkeys the opportunity of rehabilitation in a forest reserve. Now that this option seems to have disappeared for our monkeys, together with the decreasing genetic variability within our colony, we can no longer justify bringing more baby woolly monkeys into a life of captivity. In April three of our females received hormonal implants to stop them from coming on heat for the next two years. The fourth female, who is now lactating, will receive an implant as soon as she starts to come on heat again.

The Future:

As more and more viruses are being discovered in primates, the situation as described here will inevitably be faced by many zoos with captive populations. We would like to make this an opportunity to broaden the Sanctuary's work- by improving the quality of life we offer to the monkeys already here and by reopening our doors to other primates in need.

This year we are concentrating on creating a 10 year development plan that will include proposals to create a rescue centre, building on our educational resources and expanding our focus on conservation and sustainability issues.