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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: April 2008
Chilean ex-lab capuchins fly to new life at Monkey World
WAREHAM, U.K.--Approaching the March 2008 first anniversary of the death of her husband and rescue partner Jim Cronin, Monkey World cofounder Alison Cronin took on the biggest project in the 15-year history of the sanctuary: attempting to rehabilitate 88 capuchin monkeys, ranging in age from two to 30, most of whom have never known a life beyond single housing in cages and use in experiments.
Flown to Britain from Santiago, Chile, aboard a Chilean Air Force C-130 Hercules prop-jet, the capuchins arrived on January 29, 2008. Alison Cronin called it "The largest rescue of primates in the world ever."
Not quite: Center for Captive Chimp-anzee Care founder Carole Noon in 2002 took in 266 chimpanzees and 61 monkeys formerly kept by the now defunct Coulston Foundation, a major laboratory supplier. Her Florida sanctuary is now called Save the Chimps. But the Monkey World capuchin rescue is the largest laboratory primate rescue to cross international borders.
Approached for help by the lab that formerly kept the capuchins, Alison and the late Jim Cronin began planning the rescue together, before he was felled by liver cancer at age 55.
Monkey World has previously rescued and rehabilitated about 50 former laboratory primates. Located on a former pig farm, the sanctuary attracts about 500,000 visitors per year.