Monkey once part of illegal trade is free. See heartfelt reunion with photographer

A monkey, once part of the illegal wildlife trade and living in a cage, had a heartwarming reunion with a photographer in the Bolivian wild, video shows.

The video, which has garnered over 2.5 million views as of Jan. 11, shows a spider monkey named Mikah running up to Casey Cooper and giving him a hug.

Cooper, a photographer and wildlife conservationist, met Mikah a few years ago after she was rescued from living as someone’s pet and was being moved to the jungle.

Mikah was living in a “tiny cage in a small apartment in a rundown part of town,” leaving her with no social skills when it came to other monkeys, Cooper told McClatchy News in a phone interview.

“The first day I arrived at the sanctuary, Mikah was being introduced to the jungle. She was on a leash at the time, that’s how you start to habituate them to the troupe,” Cooper said.

He didn’t disclose the specific location of the sanctuary and Mikah’s whereabouts because he “doesn’t want poachers or people who want to just take selfies” to have knowledge of the area.

“Mikah was on the leash right next to the location of where I was going to be staying, and she walked up to me and kinda looked at me and hopped up and gave me a big neck hug, pretty similar to the one you see in the video,” he said.

Over the next two years, Mikah was slowly assimilated to the monkey troupe, and conservationists were close by to make sure she didn’t “get bullied or killed by the other monkeys,” he said.

As a precaution, Mikah was put in a cage in the jungle so she was safe but was still able to interact with the other monkeys, Cooper said.

Now, Mikah is able to live among the other monkeys without a cage in sight.

“They do kinda stay around the sanctuary where they’re safest since they’re at risk of getting shot or taken back to the illegal wildlife trade, but they’re free to roam wherever,” he said.

But this time when Cooper went back to the sanctuary, “Mikah was completely free and even pregnant,” he said.

“It was really cool to see. You can read these animals pretty well, and you could tell she was excited to be pregnant and was kinda showing off the fact that she was going to have a baby,” he said.

Cooper said Mikah, now an alpha female, “seems to have so much gratitude for the humans who rescued her.”

“Seeing her felt like seeing a childhood friend,” Cooper said. “It’s an emotional feeling. You have this feeling of happiness that this animal we did all this work for is happy and comfortable and living a wild life. There’s always so much disaster and sadness when it comes to these animal stories, so when you have a victory like that, you really just want to celebrate it.”

But Cooper wants people to know this story isn’t just about a sweet reunion with a monkey he’s spent “so many years with,” he said.

“Nobody wants to take someone’s pet from them, but it’s not right for these animals to be pets in the first place,” Cooper said.

Cooper said people don’t know these exotic animals “bite, scratch, attack.”

“I don’t ever want to influence people into thinking these animals would make good pets,” he said. “We are literally on the frontlines of trying to take down the illegal wildlife trade in Bolivia.”

As for Mikah, Cooper said she gave birth a few weeks ago and “finally gets to be a real monkey.”

This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Monkey once part of illegal trade is free. See heartfelt reunion with photographer."