Meet The Macaques of Monkey Island
Added 2025-07-23 00:47:54 +0000 UTCHi there
We’ve got a new video coming out later this week that tells a story about the macaques of Monkey Island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Since that’s where I used to work as a primatologist back in the day - and because I got to go back there a few months ago to make the MinuteEarth video we’re putting out this week - I figured I’d make a special video just for patrons that features footage of the monkeys along with a few stories from when I used to work there.
Your support is what allows us to make videos like this. Thanks - and enjoy!
David
Comments
Hi have you ever heard of cat island in japan?
Cameron
2025-08-05 04:13:03 +0000 UTCHi Tsee! Thanks for your questions. It would definitely have been good for MY experiments if there were fewer monkeys, but there are lots of other researchers that come to the island, studying all sorts of things (including, among other things, cortisol levels in poop, social hierarchies, animal behavior, etc.). And for most of those studies, the more the merrier. It's definitely a larger population than would exist in nature, but it's one of the few quasi-natural settings where lots and lots of research can get done.
MinuteEarth
2025-07-24 18:07:58 +0000 UTCSo cool, thanks for sharing the story. Why are people increasing the population beyond what the island supports naturally? If the loners are more useful for experiments, why not let the population get down to self sustaining levels? Isn't providing monkey chow wasteful?
Tsee Lee
2025-07-23 17:42:45 +0000 UTC
