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

Palm oil wiping out key orangutan habitat

JAKARTA (AFP) — One of the biggest populations of wild orangutans on Borneo will be extinct in three years without drastic measures to stop the expansion of palm oil plantations, conservationists said Wednesday.

"For Central Kalimantan, the species will be gone as soon as three years from now," Centre for Orangutan Protection director Hardi Bhaktiantoro told a press conference.

More than 30,000 wild orangutans live in the forests of Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, or more than half the entire orangutan population of Borneo island which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Experts believe the overall extinction rate of Borneo orangutans is nine percent per year, but in Central Kalimantan they are disappearing even faster due to unchecked expansion of palm oil plantations.

"The expansion of palm oil plantations is wiping out entire habitats and unless the government takes drastic measures to protect these orangutan sanctuaries there is no way to reverse the trend," Bhaktiantoro said.

He showed pictures taken in November of dead orangutans being carried out of new plantations in Central Kalimantan, where they are hunted as pests to prevent them eating palm seedlings.

Orangutans are found only on Borneo and Sumatra and are listed as endangered by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union, the paramount scientific authority on imperilled species.

It says numbers of the ape have fallen by well over 50 percent in the past 60 years as a result of habitat loss, poaching and the pet trade.

Indonesia has already lost 72 percent of its 123 million hectares (304 million acres) of ancient rain forest due to frenzied logging and burning of peatland for agriculture, according to Greenpeace figures.

But the recent growth in demand for palm oil from food, cosmetic and biofuel companies is putting more pressure on orangutan habitats, swathes of which lie outside conversation areas.

"The deforestation rate in the area (Central Kalimantan), especially for conversion to palm oil plantation is extremely high," Bhaktiantoro said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was keen to trumpet his government's efforts to save the orange apes as Indonesia hosted the UN-sponsored world climate conference in December.

He used the occasion to unveil a scheme called the Orangutan Action Plan designed to stabilise orangutan populations and habitat by 2017 and promote sustainable forest management.