Monkey down!

The other day, after a pretty ferocious thunder storm blew through, I was up at the rancho cleaning off the tables and straightening up things that had blown over during the storm.

As Mini-B and I were heading up the main trail to go turn on the lights, I noticed a brown lump on the ground. I did a double-take and saw that it was a howler monkey, curled up in a ball like it was sleeping. It wasn't moving at all. I scooped up Mini-B before she could get up to the monkey and tossed her in the rancho kitchen. I got Lucy and she called Proyecto Asis, the local wildlife rescue center, to have someone call over.

At first, we thought the little critter was dead as it wasn't moving at all. Just as I was going to get a stick to prod it, it moved just a little.

About 30 minutes later, the vet came over and took a look at the simian. It got up and staggered side to side like it was drunk, before it settled down and tucked its hands under its head and closed its eyes.

The vet then got out a cage and some pipe and rope to herd the little bugger into the cage. It took a few tries and the monkey wasn't entirely thrilled with being woken from its stupor, but it was finally in the cage.

We assisted the vet with an injection and squiring some medicine into its mouth and then it was off to the center. The vet's best guess was that the monkey either fell out of the trees or was knocked out by a branch, etc., and it had a concussion.