Bluff monkey rescued after two months of torture
A four-year-old vervet monkey was rescued on The Bluff after months of searching for her. The monkey had sustained severe cuts and stab wounds.
THE repercussions of animal cruelty reared their ugly head when a four-year-old vervet monkey named Gail was finally rescued after almost two months of being tied by ligatures, and she also had stab wounds.
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Steve Smit, co-founder of Monkey Helpline, described the horrifying state the monkey was in after he finally rescued her following a long search.
“Her legs had been tied for so long that the ligatures had cut deep into her muscles. But what we found next was even worse: Somebody had maliciously pushed a sharp object into her flesh above her ankles and threaded the cord through these wounds to keep her tied and unable to move,” he said.
The young monkey had been seen by residents on The Bluff for months hopping on her hands due to the bindings that constricted her legs. “Her right ankle is completely fused, meaning she can’t move her foot at all. Whoever did this, didn’t just tie her up; they tortured her to make sure she would never walk properly again,” he said.
Smit believes her captor wanted to use her, either for superstitious reasons or as food. “The way she was tied up was too meticulously carried out. She was never meant to be released,” he said.
The rescue was made on September 22 on The Bluff, when Smit was in search of Gail. “I heard about this monkey with her legs tied, struggling to move, walking on her hands with her legs in the air. People would spot her, but when we accounted for travel time, it would be too late and she would be gone,” he said. It became a tragic pattern.
Determined to save Gail, Smit and Gail Coetzee, the resident after whom the monkey is named, began studying the monkey’s routes. He said they had been doing an inspection around the area behind the Wentworth Hospital and were feeding naartjies to the monkeys when he saw a monkey stand up onto its hands with its legs bound together. The closer he got to the monkey, the more the monkey noticed him and tried to run away.
“I didn’t know how to approach the monkey without becoming scared. So, when she started running, I just decided to sprint after her and eventually dived and caught her. During this time, the monkey screamed while her mother and the rest of the troop came in and tried to ward me away,” he said.
Now in the care of Monkey Helpline, Gail is on a course of antibiotics, and her wounds are being attended to. Recovery is far from over as she prepares for another vet visit today (October 1).
Whether she can be released will depend on what the vet’s results are. Even if she is handicapped, female monkeys share deep bonds within their troop, and that can ensure her rehabilitation. If the results say otherwise, the monkey will remain in our lifetime sanctuary,” he said.
Smit believes people are hostile because they do not understand monkeys; they are afraid and get aggressive. He further strongly discouraged any cruelty against these animals and said that what happened to Gail is considered a crime.
He urges anyone with information on the perpetrator of this crime against Gail to contact him on 082 659 4711 so they may take the perpetrator to justice.
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