The monkeys that currently live on Cayo are the direct descendants of 409 monkeys who were brought to the island in 1938. The Cayo Santiago Field Station is the longest-running primate field site in the world.Ĭayo Santiago is a 38-acre tropical island off the coast of Puerto Rico and home to approximately 1,500 rhesus monkeys, earning it the local nickname 'Monkey Island.' Since its founding in 1938, generations of monkeys have lived out their life with humans watching CAYO SANTIAGO FIELD STATION - 80 YEARS OF MONKEY RESEARCH Cayo Santiago Field Station is the longest-running primate field site in the world. Research staff return to Cayo Santiago after Hurricane Maria to assess conditions on the island.
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She is now an old lady in monkey years, beloved for her spunky personality, and we had just gotten word that she survived Hurricane Maria. Monkey Zero-Zero-Oh is a female we sometimes called 'Ooooo.' “They’re doing the best they can do under very difficult conditions, but it needs help and attention.Each monkey on the island is assigned a unique three-character ID, which soon starts to feel like its name.
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While the rescue effort is heroic, “it’s not sustainable,” said Higham, who is bringing in a container full of supplies, possibly on a ship that would anchor off the island. Because the hurricane destroyed the island’s chemical toilet, researchers and workers can stay only until they need a bathroom break: Human waste could start an epidemic that could wipe out the monkeys. Anyone who comes into contact with monkey saliva or urine must undergo rigorous decontamination and treatment with antiretroviral drugs.
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Mainland scientists are bringing in equipment from chain saws to a portable pier, funded by tens of thousands of dollars raised so far in university departments and online.Ĭomplicating the effort, the monkeys all carry herpes B, a version of the virus that is harmless to macaques but can be fatal in humans. Now the university staff and local employees who keep Monkey Island running are frantically ferrying bags of chow in a tiny skiff, feeding the macaques a survival diet and trying to reassemble the rainwater collectors and drinking troughs that keep the animals alive in the tropical sun. “It’s completely unprecedented in its breadth and size,” said James Higham, a professor of biological anthropology at NYU who is studying the monkeys’ behavior, cognition and communication. Researchers from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University and others have been spending much of the year on the island studying everything from the monkeys’ eye movements to the genes and behavior of socially aberrant individuals that may provide insight into the causes of autism. About 100 have had their entire genetic makeup sequenced, and hundreds more have had at least some of their DNA analyzed.
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Since then the 400 or so macaques have reproduced and expanded their numbers, becoming the world’s most studied free-ranging primate population and something of a living library.Įvery animal born on the island is tattooed for easy identification, and the skeleton of every one that has died over nine generations has been saved for future reference.
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Clarence Ray Carpenter wanted a place with the perfect mix of isolation and free range, where the monkeys could be studied living much as they do in nature without the difficulties of tracking them through the wild. The island’s history as a research center dates to 1938, when the man known as the father of American primate science brought a population of Indian rhesus macaques to the United States. No bodies have been found and a census is not detecting large numbers of missing macaques. Incredibly, as far as the scientists can tell so far, the monkeys survived the direct hit from the hurricane, perhaps by seeking high ground and clustering together at the base of trees.
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“Does FEMA cover this? Does the university’s insurance cover this? I don’t know.” “All of our tools were destroyed,” said Angelina Ruiz Lambides, the director of the Cayo Santiago facility.