George, the monkey in the lead photo, passed away a few months ago. He lived a short life compared to what is average for other monkeys. He was given medications to sedate him while he was smuggled from Asia by a woman pretending she was pregnant. She had strapped him under her clothing. The medication caused kidney damage that shortened his life. Authorities discovered the illegal import of the monkey, and George was brought to OPR at a very young age.
Before I tell you more about the sanctuary and some of the monkeys, I want to show one activity that the monkeys enjoy and one reason that we pair them whenever we can.
Monkeys like to groom each other. It is one way they bond. (The videos are the sequence part of the Bucket).
We find they enjoy grooming volunteers, too.
28 acres were donated for a sanctuary in 2008. In the left upper corner is the residence, education center and hospital. In the middle are two barns but another has been added. There are three new outdoor enclosures not shown in this photo but are shown in other photos below.
To close, I will post some photos of monkeys and their stories to give you an idea of where our monkeys come from.
To end this Bucket, I though you’d enjoy watching a video of Cosmo at play. I took the video on August 20 so it is very recent.
If you have enough energy after reading this Bucket and watching the videos, you could add some comments of your own. Any experience with monkeys or just anything on your mind would add to the entertainment value of this Bucket. Thanks for joining in. You are an honorary monkey for the day.
(Note: Just about all of this Bucket was taken by using screen captures of the web site which is: www.OregonPrimateRescue.com. Much more about the sanctuary can be viewed there. OPR is a USDA licensed sanctuary. It is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was first established on a small acreage in Dallas, Oregon in 1998 and moved to Longview, WA in 2008. Some of the photos and the videos were taken by me on my last visit Saturday, August 20th).