Lina, a rescued baby woolly monkey couldn’t walk. Because of a muscle problem she couldn’t raise her head. After an injection she felt better and in theory everything was alright, But in practice she still couldn’t walk. So when I started to take care of her and three other rescued woolly monkeys, she stayed with me (she hung on me) all day long. So I started some therapy. Every day I exercised her paws and I put her up on a branch (it was really difficult, because as soon as she wasn’t hanging on to me, she started to cry) and encouraged her to walk and be a monkey. At the beginning she was really slow, sometimes she even refused to move, she just lied down on a branch. I discovered she loves monkey balls, so I started to use them as a reward. She had to walk along the branches to get a monkey ball and then once again, etc. In time, she became faster and stronger, she started to eat alone and even go to the table where the food was served to eat. Then she started walking a little bit more every day. One day she started to play with the other monkeys. Eventually, she just came to me when I arrived to say “hello”, stayed with me for a few minutes and spent most of the day playing with the other monkeys, eating, etc.
Pilpintuwasi is a wildlife rescue and temporary custody center located on 20 hectares of land in the village of Padre Cocha, 20 minutes outside of Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting animals affected by the poaching and trafficking industry which thrives in Iquitos.