She nurses animals back into the wild
You’ve seen them all over the country: animals that are supposed to be wild, tied up or caged as pets. Ever wonder what happens to these creatures when their owners are no longer willing or able to care for them? Today I found out.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Meet the Monkey Lady…
Robin Brockett, Monkey Lady
“In order to be successful, I have to treat them as monkeys and parrots rather than as human beings. I have to know their language and what’s normal for them”
So yes, this is a normal working day for Robin Brockett. (Playing with monkey)
For almost a decade Brockett has been living in Belize working with wildlife. Today, she is the only person authorized by the Forest Department to act as a holding facility for confiscated or rescued wildlife…all with the intention of re-release into their natural habitat.
Janelle Chanona
“Under her highly technical management, since 1999 Robin Brockett has been able to successfully release more than twenty-five animals: toucans, parrots, and thirteen howler monkeys. The researcher says the work is challenging but very rewarding.”
On arrival, the condition of the animals varies from the healthy to the dehydrated to the near dead. But some show up as playful babies.
Robin Brockett
“I don’t promote this sort of thing obviously because I’m not going to be released into the wild with them. But this is a comfort thing for her because she’s got somebody strange in here.”
For the monkeys, the first step is to put them on a natural diet.
Robin Brockett
“They are primarily leaf eaters, they eat at least seventy-five different species of leaves and plants. That’s probably the most labour intensive part of doing this is actually going and collecting fresh leaves for them every single day. They also get fruit supplements as well, but that’s not something they get in the wild. Then to get them behaving naturally, introducing them to each other, they do much better released as a troupe rather than solitary animals. It’s also easier for me to follow them after they are released.”
But before they are reintroduced into the wild, the monkeys are weaned from Brockett’s care in what’s called a pre-release facility deep in the jungle and accessible only by river.
Whenever possible, Brockett releases a troupe of howler monkeys in April, when food is abundant. She even goes so far as camping out for three weeks in the bush with them compiling behavioural data: documenting what they eat, how far they travel, any human impact, and if she’s lucky, watching them integrate into wild populations of howlers.
Robin Brockett
“If I don’t follow them and know what’s happening to them after they are released, there’s no way I know what I’m doing right or wrong here and whether the whole project is successful at all. So I’ve got troupes that were released over two years ago that I’m still following and watching in the bush.”
“An annual report goes to the conservation division and much of what I find out, even if it’s not in a scientific format for them, provides recommendations for their wildlife management and what to do in the protected areas and what needs to be done for howler monkeys to survive. They are a threatened species, we’ve got good numbers of them right now, but that’s not necessarily going to stay the case you know… It’s always a better thing to know what to do before, just like hurricane preparedness, before it happens it may never happen, but let’s be prepared for it.”
And part of that preparation means educating the public on the reality of keeping wildlife as pets.
Robin Brockett
“It’s illegal to capture and keep any species of wildlife and there are reasons for that. Part of it is to conserve and protect the species themselves, but there are also health reasons. These animals carry a lot of diseases, parasites that can be transmitted to people. People can transmit diseases to them as well. All that endangers both our populations.”
So is the moral of the story to open the cage and let your pet run or fly free? Far from it.
Robin Brockett
“I have certain amount of space for animals and I will taken even non-releasable animals if I have the space. The best thing to do is to contact me or to contact the Forest Department if you have an animal and you’re willing to give it up. And even if you are not willing to give it up, maybe contact me and find out what a better diet for this animal is. Parrots especially, they are social animals and most of them are kept solitary in tiny little cages. They don’t get exercise, they get very bad diets, they’re rarely clean, and sometimes they are not even getting water. It’s heartbreaking for somebody who knows what they need to see them in this situation. And I think it’s just a matter of people not knowing what they need. They’re not necessarily being cruel on purpose, they enjoy having pets, almost everybody like that, but let’s treat them humanely.”
Though she struggles to make ends meet with funding from small grants and donations, and doing the bulk of the work all alone, Brockett finds her inspiration high above.
Robin Brockett
“My happiest moment is when I know that those animals, after they are released, and it’s not the first week or even the second week, but sometime shortly after that when they aren’t taking food anymore from me and they are interacting with each other. They might look down at me, but they don’t want to come down and they don’t want to play with me anymore; that’s my happiest moment. That’s my reward.”
If you would like to volunteer to assist Brockett with her research or make donations, please contact her at P.O. Box 431 in Belmopan or at telephone number 601-4095. Local companies who have already contributed to Brockett’s project include Benny’s, The Wood Depot, and Habet and Habet.
