Monday 23 July 2012

Brazen

Here he is....
Mr. Brazen live and in living colour....Brownie's nemesis.

He is a Barbados Green Monkey or Vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops)



Sitting and scoping to see what mischief he can get up to.


Do you see his brightly coloured yellow tail??



These monkeys were originally brought to Barbados in slave ships from Senegal and the Gambia in West Africa over 350 years ago.
They  have a brown grey fur which is quite thick, and the face, hands and feet are black. In the sunlight, this fur takes on a greenish sheen, hence the name Barbados Green Monkey.
The tip of the tail is a golden yellow.
Brazen is a very smart guy...he has outwitted the trapper on a number of occasions.
If he could be a well behaved fellow, he and I would be great friends....but he does not want to be my friend.  He wants to remain foes.
These monkeys love fruits, no problem there, the neighbours are willing to share, even leaving whole bunches of bananas at their disposal, but that is not good enough as far as they are concerned.  They are very destructive and therefore have proven to be incredible pests.  Their favourite hangout spot is any fruit bearing tree, where they know when the fruits are ripe way long before you do.
Their annoying habit of stealing fruit, and taking a bite and then discarding it for another fruit will never be understood.

Soursop fruit with one bite taken out  and left discarded

Here on the island, they destroy entire fields of crops and are therefore considered to be pests by farmers.
They can be very aggressive, and believe me I have heard some horror stories. They have even attacked small babies and toddlers (these accounts have been well  documented in the local news).
They are especially famous for antagonizing dogs (poor Brownie can vouch for this). I've just discovered that they also love breaking license plates.  I did awake one morning aeons ago to find my license plate broken, but had no idea......wow.
The government has instituted a Crop Damage Control Program by offering a bounty on their tails.
The Barbados Wildlife Reserve was started by Canadian primatologist Jean Baulu  to aid in terminating the practice of killing the monkeys.
It became a research facility.  At one time 80% of the world's polio vaccines came from the Barbados Green Monkey, and most were sold to research labs in Europe. A pair of kidneys from a Barbados Green Monkey could produce millions of doses for the polio vaccine. However, now that polio has almost been eradicated, so has the vaccine production.
It is interesting to note that these Barbados Green Monkeys do not carry the AIDS virus like many of their species in Africa.

Anyone care to take Brazen off our hands???
Or maybe I should be thankful to have this creature living in my neighbourhood.
Although technically speaking, it was his neighbourhood before we all moved in, so he probably wants us to go away too.

Check out this BBC link to some monkeys in St.Kitts, another Caribbean island further north.

6 comments:

  1. And here I was complaining about the squirrels around here. Your pests would drive me crazy!
    m.

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  2. Mark, I think I would take your squirrels any day.....

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  3. AS cute as monkeys are, he would drive me crazy! My dogs chase off the squirrels but would be no match for a smart monkey.

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  4. I think I'll stop complaining about the starlings and pigeons and play the Glad Game - there are no marauding mammals here.

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  5. Tammy, I don't think of them as CUTE anymore....

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  6. GB, be thankful for what you have...as my dad would always say "could be worse".

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