specialized diet. It is for this reason that they tend to travel around on a specific circuit as they follow new growth of leaves in the species of trees they have evolved to eat. They normally forage from tree to tree in their chosen species of trees, and when they have exhausted the new growth in one area, they head to another area using the trees as their 'highways.' All is well if they are able to safely travel from one feeding area to another without risking their lives. In many instances, their feeding areas are becoming isolated and fragmented so they can't safely travel in the canopy of the trees from one area to another, but have to come down to the ground to cross roads where many are killed on the highways, sometimes mothers with babies on their back who can't move as fast to get out of the way of traffic. Many are killed as they try desperately to avoid descending to the ground to avoid dogs and are electrocuted on power lines."

These problems have inspired action in other parts of Costa Rica. For example, at Manuel Antonio National Park and Quepos, a group called ASCOMOTI (the Association for the Preservation of the Mono Titi, www.ascomoti.org) has programs under way to map corridors, plant trees, and insulate electrical wires (having done the last inside Manuel Antonio National Park in 2001 with the help of ICE) so as to save the endangered squirrel monkey (Mono Titi) and other animals. At Playa Nosara also the community is raising money to reduce howler monkey deaths by insulating power lines. In at least one area, people are providing rope lines between trees, hoping that monkeys and sloths will use the ropes instead of the electrical wires.

When Gloria moved to Costa Rica, the residents of Arenal, a community with no veterinarian, learning about her background, spontaneously drafted Gloria into caring for injured animals, both wild and domestic - a black lab bitten by a viper, a sloth with feet burned by electrical wires, five baby oropendolas whose storm-tossed hanging nests fell from a communal tree, a young howler monkey brain-damaged when hit by a car. This first monkey, Chico, injured in 2003, stayed with Gloria for five months until she discovered the baby howler rescue and release program at Zoo Ave in La Garita, just west of Alajuela.

"We think Chico may have been about seven months old," says Gloria. "He was still drinking milk from a nurser but eating solids by then. He was hit by a car on the left side of his head, which initially affected his left arm and leg. But over the course of months he completely healed with full use of all his limbs. Chico made a full recovery with no sign that he ever had a central nervous system impairment."

Having already discovered Zoo Ave, Gloria was able to turn Sami over to them within a few weeks, then weighing over one pound. "When I contacted them about this little one, they told they had two others twice his size and would gladly take him. So when he was very stable and eating and gaining well, I took him to be with the other two little ones to begin to bond with them and in the future form their own little troupe to return to the wild. The earlier little howlers are placed together the better their chances of bonding with each other and relying less on humans for their care for a successful survival in the wild."

The case of Chico illustrates a second major cause of death to monkeys forced to take alternative routes to their natural corridors. Sometimes roads may be crossed aerially when trees on opposite sides of the road touch or nearly touch above the road. Then you may be lucky enough to see the wonderful spectacle of a group of howler monkeys one by one leaping far out over the road, falling into trees on the opposite side. When the trees are not so close, it is charming to see the monkey group - adults, young, mothers with babies - scurry across the road in sporadic single-file, charming but more dangerous than leaping across via the canopy high above the road.

A third killer is the country's system of power lines which the monkeys and sloths often use to continue their feeding circuits, the monkeys walking atop the wires, the sloths hanging upside down. Often the animals encounter uninsulated components which electrocute or stun them so that they fall to the ground. The electrical death of monkeys near Playa Nosara has been so common that the community has formed an organization to raise money to insulate the wires.

Link to Monkey Habitat, page 3