Monkey Madness
Vervet monkeys on the island are residents’ biggest nightmare. But the government’s population control methods for the species has some people concerned, both for local farmers and public health.
The screeches of the monkey pierced the air around her, ringing through the research site as if blasted through loudspeakers. Dr. Kerry Dore stood stunned. A green vervet monkey, half alive and bloodied, was stuck under the rusted metal bar of a clamp trap. Dore, a primatologist who has spent the past eleven years of her career studying green vervet monkeys on the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, was visiting the loosely fenced farmland nestled in the lush jungle up-island with one of her local friends who occupies the land.
The farmer turned towards Dore, visibly annoyed, and said that he would leave the trapped monkey to force others in the monkey’s troop to leave his property alone. The local troop constantly pillaged his land, taking single bites out of the cucumbers he grew and ripping up entire rows of carrots. Frustrated, he took matters into his own hands with traps. The monkey’s shrieks acted as a warning cry to others: Do not come here.
Two small green vervets hide in a Caribbean almond tree on St. Kitts. | Photo Courtesy of Kerry Dore
Dore’s experience that day reflects a larger debate about monkeys on St. Kitts and Nevis. She says the current monkey population across both islands is at least 40,000. On Nevis specifically, Dore’s research shows there are anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 monkeys. With the World Bank’s estimated human population of about 53,000 across the two islands, there is nearly a one-to-one ratio of humans to monkeys in the country. Past efforts to curb the monkey population included mass male castration, temporary sterilization of females, and sending a certain number of the species to the U.S. for scientific research. But the sheer number of monkeys rendered each project unsustainable and the monkey population has boomed over the past thirty years.
Now, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nevis is facing a lack of tourists. With less people on the island the monkeys take advantage of the opportunity to overrun the island. They destroy everything from flower boxes to home gardens to entire crop fields. Given the extent of overpopulation, the United Nations Environment Program supports the government through the Preventing COSTS of Invasive Alien Species in Barbados and the OECS Countries project, which Dore leads. This work and Dore’s attempts to build close relationships with farmers has encouraged many people to support various initiatives led by the Department of Agriculture’s to control the monkey population.
Fewer tourists visiting Nevis also uncovered a hushed point of conversation on the island about eating monkey meat. A local farmer named Burnett Thompson, who goes by the nickname Nutsy, estimated that 35 to 40 percent of locals eat monkey meat, which Nevisians call tree mutton. For decades the consumption of monkey meat remained a private practice unknown to most tourists. But for the first time in my family’s twenty years of visiting Nevis, a post from the Department of Agriculture circulated across Facebook advertising the sale of fresh monkey meat. The ad called widespread public attention to the monkey meat. At $2.50 USD a pound it was a deal for dog meat or homemade curry. But Dore believes the ad is a sign of pandemic-related changes on the island. “I do think it is not coincidental that we are having more public advertisement of monkey control and monkey meat consumption in selling during a time when there are not really tourists here,” Dore says. Two days later the post was taken down.
The monkey meat advertisement, posted by the St. Kitts Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Marine Resources, that circulated Facebook groups in September 2021.
The issues regarding the sale of monkey meat today reflect a larger, complex history for the species since it arrived on the island during the slave trade of the late 1500s. Most historians believe that green vervets, a species previously found only in Africa, came to St. Kitts and Nevis as exotic pets of European colonizers. However some residents have other theories, including Richie Lupinacci and his father Richard Lupinacci Sr. The Lupinacci family owns and runs The Hermitage, one of the oldest former sugar plantations in the Caribbean that is a cottage-style inn. The Lupinaccis speculate that the monkeys were brought as a source of food for slaves, similar to how breadfruit came to the Caribbean. Within just 25 years of their arrival there was a bounty for monkey tails because of a population boom, which the Lupinaccis say can’t be justified by a few pets.
Over the following 300 years the species evolved into two subspecies. One variant inhabits the trees and has small nimble bodies for swinging between branches. The other species resides mainly on the ground, especially near beach areas, and has a large and aggressive stature. Up through the 1990s the monkeys mostly lived up-island in the jungle, surrounding the top of the inactive volcano. But when Hurricane Hugo hit Nevis particularly hard in 1989 the monkeys fled down the mountain in search of food. Finding yards plentiful with fruit trees and manicured gardens with vegetables, locals say that the monkeys essentially never went back up.
Today, monkeys are a part of everyday life for just about everyone who lives on Nevis. You see them hanging on colorfully painted fences and in front yards while driving. Some sections of the main road have bright yellow MONKEY X-ING signs for highly populated areas. Merchandise at almost every hotel or local boutique is printed with drawings of monkeys. You may even be woken up in the morning by the loud barking sound of a male, alerting his troop whether it is safe to advance. But the challenges with their presence persist. “They’re evil things, even though they look cute,” says Richard Lupinacci Sr.
A typical MONKEY-XING sign you may see when driving around the island. The design has also become popular on shirts and stickers.
Burnett Thompson farms the same plot of land on Nevis that he bought in 1994 and monkeys remain his biggest challenge throughout his 27 year career. With rows of vegetables ranging from sweet peppers to squash and cucumbers, Thompson is constantly coming up with new ways to protect his crops. Currently he relies on his two dogs who run along a cable system on the perimeter of the property to scare away the monkeys. Eventually he would like to have 8 to 10 dogs, as a pack has stronger force in scaring away a troop. Yet the monkeys, which Thompson describes as “spiteful, badass animals,” still manage to ravage his land. “A few weeks ago I had a watermelon. A huge watermelon. And then there was a monkey. If only he had just finished that one watermelon. But no. Instead he just goes to every watermelon in my field and he takes a bite out of every one,” Thompson says. He relies on the income of selling his produce at the market in Charlestown or to local grocery stores such as Rams. But when the monkeys eat even one bite of fruit it renders it unsellable and unprofitable.
Rakeesh Subramani, a self-described jack of all trades when it comes to land caretaking, faces similar monkey problems on the property he cares for and in his own home garden. Each morning Subramani comes out of his white and yellow wooden cottage to see whether the nearby monkey troop destroyed anything in his garden filled with eggplants, tomatoes, herbs, and various tropical fruits. More often than not, a bite is taken out of many of the vegetables and fruits. The single bite is signature trademark of the vervets. Subramani says the most effective ways to fight against the destructive behavior include electrical fencing or building a greenhouse, two tactics the Department of Agriculture on Nevis use to help large-scale farmers.
Randy Elliott, Director of Agriculture for the Nevis Island Administration, says that monkeys destroy up to 80% of farms and up to 100% of home gardens if there is not proper protection. But greenhouse and electrical fencing aren’t always enough. Sometimes, it takes the work of a monkey trapper and shooter to do the job. Nevis’s monkey shooting and trapping program falls under Elliott. There are around ten official shooters and trappers across the island, all of whom try to target areas of high agricultural concentration. “Our intention is not to eradicate or eliminate; it is to reduce their impact in agriculture areas. ” Elliott says. However, others who I spoke to say that the program is much more robust than the government makes it out to be. Ultimately the trappers will go wherever they are called, including people’s homes, especially with less tourist oversight during the pandemic.
Subramani described the process to me, explaining that residents and farmers can either call a shooter directly or the Port Authority Police if they are having trouble with a troop of monkeys. The shooters then bring their licensed shotguns to a site. To have the greatest impact on scaring away a whole troop, the shooters try to kill the alpha male of the group as they stand alert on their hindquarters while others eat the crops. One loud gunshot and the piercing scream of a shot monkey and the others scatter immediately. It usually only takes one or two monkeys to be killed for a troop to never return to that area again.
For each monkey they shoot or trap the men get $20 XCD (Eastern Caribbean Dollars), but only if they return with proof: a monkey tail. Long and skinny, curling at the end with bristly hair, the monkey tail serves as the ultimate sign of success for a trapper or shooter. The meat then travels to a rudimentary processing facility where members of the Department of Agriculture grind it or cut it into cubes. Elliot explains the meat is only meant for consumption by dogs, but other sources confirmed that some locals buy it for personal consumption. Even Richard Luppinaci Sr. tried the meat, noting it tastes very similar to rabbit.
Like many, Luppinaci Sr. believes the island should take inspiration from America’s approach to the overpopulation of deer, which includes both culling and eating, when it comes to killing monkeys and the consumption of tree mutton. Dore, whose main role as a primatologist is to study the interaction between humans and primates, understands locals’ desire to curb the population. She even supports shooting and trapping programs -- as long as these efforts take a human approach and focus on moderation. But, for her, the deer comparison fails. Monkeys, she argues, pose more of a moral dilemma. “Quite frankly, we're talking about something, a different kind of creature. We're talking about something incredibly humanlike, incredibly intelligent and incredibly closely related to us,” Dore says.
A young green vervet peaks its head out from behind a beach bar counter. | Photo Courtesy of Kerry Dore
Plus, as a scientist, she understands those similarities create the potential for public health concerns when it comes to the practice of eating monkey meat. Species that are more closely related such as humans and monkeys are at a higher risk of passing parasites, viruses, and bacteria to one another. “If you look at COVID, I mean, all the conspiracy theories aside, it's from wet markets in China,” Dore says. “So we're looking at our interaction with species in new ways and we just don't know what the ramifications of that could be. So it just seems silly to be eating it, you know. If it was advertised explicitly as dog food, I think that I would be more comfortable with that.”
Nick Atwood, the campaign organizer at the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF), agrees and emphasizes that any contact with live or dead monkeys can put people in danger of disease transmission, including COVID-19. The ARFF has worked to fight inhumane treatment of vervets in St. Kitts and Nevis for more than 10 years with the perspective that each individual animal possesses worth. Despite their claims of morality in defending the rights of animals, organizations such as ARFF, Green Peace, and PETA have intimidated many local shooters and trappers on the island by threatening to contact them directly after finding out about the shooting and trapping program. Those actions create fear among those looking to cull the monkey population, and they worry about their ability to make money if their identities become known. In fact, one source who shoots monkeys for a living agreed to be interviewed with the stipulation he remained anonymous. But after agreeing to share his experience, he decided not to before our call out of fear due to the potential power of animal rights groups on social media.
Because of these dynamics, Dore wants to protect all of the parties involved in her research: locals, farmers, and the monkeys. “I’m trying to navigate how I'm always going be perceived as an animal rights activist, just because I'm white and American and a primatologist. They’re going to assume I want to save all the monkeys,” Dore says. “So I am nesting myself in a way that is advocating for farmers, but that's also keeping in mind that these are sentient creatures that are just trying to eat and were brought here against their will.”