Coco, Honey & Pablo

Story:

Coco’s Story

My name is Coco.

I live here with two other white-faced capuchins, Honey and Pablo. Each of us arrived at the sanctuary for a different reason, but our stories have something important in common: none of us can go back to the wild.

I’ll start with me.

I was kept as a pet in San Isidro. My owner used to walk me on a leash, like a dog, until someone reported it. I was confiscated while I was still very young and taken to a sanctuary in Osa. Later, when that sanctuary closed, I was transferred here to Alturas.

Growing up around people left its mark on me. Over time, I developed a lot of frustration and stress around humans. I sometimes throw whatever I can get my hands on, and when I become overwhelmed, I can fall into unusual behaviors, like standing upside down on my head.

I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m simply carrying the effects of a life I was never meant to live.

Then there’s Pablo.

Despite her name, Pablo is actually a girl. She was kept as a pet by a drug cartel and was found locked inside a cage when authorities raided the property. She went to the Osa sanctuary in 2012 and came to Alturas in 2014.

Pablo loves people and feels comfortable around them. But she has spent her entire life in captivity. She never had the chance to learn what it means to be a wild capuchin.

And then there’s Honey.

Honey was taken from a family in Cortez who had kept her as a pet. She arrived here as an adult, already accustomed to people and to living without the troop she would naturally have grown up with.

The three of us are considered non-releasable.

Wild white-faced capuchins live in large, complex, and stable groups. A wild troop would quickly recognize that we behave differently. We could be rejected, injured, or even attacked. Returning us to the wild could also put us at greater risk of dangerous encounters with people, especially in places where monkeys and humans already come into conflict.

And there is something else: we never learned all the skills we would need to survive. We don’t fully know how to find, identify, or process the foods that wild capuchins depend on.

So we stay here.

Three monkeys. Three different stories. Three lives shaped by humans in ways we never chose.

We may never have the life our wild relatives have.

But here, we have something else: safety, companionship, and a place to call home.