The Vervet Monkey

 

 

 

Vervet monkeys live in troops of up to 20, It consists of an Alpha male and a second in command or a scout in the form of a beta-male. There is a harem of adult females as well as the juveniles which are governed by an Alpha female.

The Alpha is the only male in the troop who is allowed to mate with his ‘Harem’ of sexually mature females.

The second in commands task is to search out sources of food as well as to warn the troop of impending danger.

The Alpha female is usually responsible for sorting out domestic disputes which occur within the troop, she does this with an intimidating stare and raised eyebrows and a show of teeth.

Juveniles reach sexual maturity at the age of 4 years. Females give birth after 7 months, mothers are fiercely protective over their young inspite of the fact that the rest of the troop wish to shower the infants with affection. Majority of infants are born early spring (September/October) and the birth occurs at night or early morning. After 2-3 weeks mothers relax their guard somewhat and allow themselves to be groomed, whilst this is taking place babies are often robbed from their mothers by over-eager juvenile nannies who wish to rehearse the roles they will be playing in the coming months. As time passes the babies become inquisitive of their surroundings and spend longer away from their mothers climbing branches on their own, the nannies play an important role in looking after michievious infants, a squeal when reassurance is needed will always bring mother back

By watching and playing the infants learn a lot about being a monkey, by depriving orphan babies of the opportunity to interact with older monkeys you will cause irreparable physchological damage. Some monkeys depending on their personalities may enjoy swimming.

LIVING WITH THE VERVET MONKEY

Conflict between people and vervet monkeys has been on the increase over the last years as large areas of towns and cities have been developed for housing. In building homes and gardens we have cut down indigenous trees in favour of cultivated fruit trees which vervets prefer.Conflict between monkeys and people has obviously arisen and solutions which will hopefully alleviate the problems have had to devised.

Monkeys have lways lived in the forests and their numbers are not increasing because of habitat loss (both forests and grasslands) making the monkeys dependant on garden foraging. Numbers are decreasing due to predators, crowned eagles,pythons,dogs, and of course cars, snares guns and electric pylons, numbers of troop rarely reach 20 now, usually about 13-17 Monkeys have unfortunately learnt that houses mean food.

Do not shoot posion trap or kill monkeys other methods should be used.

The best way to avoid problems is not to feed the monkeys by hand leave food out when they are not around on a feeding platform Keep windows closed, rubber snakes left around moved regularly will make the monkeys warey. Paint big black eyes on bright yellow balls and hang them up allowing them to blow in the wind.

Remember it is not until all the plants birds and animals have disappeared that we will realize how lonely we are.