Monday 28 September 2015

COSTA RICA: Police Rescue Baby Howler Monkey from Drunkard

Officers from Fuerza Publica, the national police force of Costa Rica, arrested a drunk man who, for some reason, was holding a baby howler monkey hostage in Liberia, province of Guanacaste.

According to official press release CP-1602-2015 from the Ministry of Public Security, Fuerza Publica officers assigned to the main precinct in Liberia responded to reports of a threatening man who walked around yelling at pedestrians while carrying a tiny primate.

It all happened in the Curubande district, where the officers arrived to find that, in fact, a drunk and belligerent man was wielding a machete and holding on very tightly to a juvenile howler monkey that seemed to be very nervous.

The boozer was identified by the last name of Miranda; he was easily disarmed, but the officers had to take him down in order to wrestle the monkey off his grip. Both the machete and the animal were confiscated.

The disposition of the intoxicated primate was not mentioned in the press release; however, the baby howler spent a few hours at the Fuerza Publica precinct while waiting for wildlife conservation officials from the Ministry of the Environment to arrive. The monkey was taken to the wildlife rescue center at Santa Rosa National Park, where it was determined to be in good health.

In Costa Rica, howler monkeys can be found in a couple of regions; one of these regions being the tropical dry forest in the province of Guanacaste.

When juvenile howler monkeys are separated from their troops, wildlife conservation experts are sometimes successful in encouraging alloparental care, which involves introducing the juvenile to a controlled troop at a wildlife rescue center. The ideal troop would have a younger adult female and an aging, docile alpha male.

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