From St Kitts

Monkey Business

We had a fun excursion out to an area called Ship Wreck Bay, on the Caribbean side of the island. The local business owner feeds a troop of monkeys at about 5 p.m. every afternoon. We have seen a few monkeys in our neighborhood (no, we don’t mean us) and at church but only from a distance, not very close.

We wanted to check out this special event so off we drove over a mountain and down to the beach at Ship Wreck Bay. As we approached the area they had not started to feed them yet and the monkeys were quite active. The younger ones where ripping around in the trees and bushes jumping and chasing each other up and down and around. They were very entertaining and fun to watch.

When the feeding started a gentlemen was tossing peanuts out on the ground and the monkeys got busy cracking them and stuffing the peanuts into their cheek pouches. They stored them there until they had time to go back to the resting place and eat. It was very intriguing to watch them at work and to see who was the real boss of the feeding grounds.

Not only were there monkeys about but also several mongooses were also visible, feeding on a tray of prepared vegetables. Mongoose do not like peanuts and monkeys do not like vegetables – each has its own meal. It was fun to watch these animals in a near natural setting.

The monkeys are green vervet monkeys (chlorocebus sabaeus) and were imported during the slave trading days of St. Kitts/Nevis. The green vervet refers to their slightly greenish, light brown coats.