UVP Report

S. Mercier Issue 8 | 10.07.2023

 Team update

Zonke departure – back to Mawana

A page turns, a new story begins… or keep on going! Zonke indeed left Simbithi at the beginning of June
as her contract here ended. But her love for the monkeys is not over, she went back from where she came
from: Mawana Game Reserve where she is still a field assistant for the iNkawu Vervet Project collecting
data on the wild population of vervet monkeys in the bush. Here is the website of this fieldsite for the
curious ones who want more news about IVP: INKAWU VERVET PROJECT. Thank you so much for your
stay and your great help in UVP, it was fantastic having you here for 2 months, your expertise was
definitely beneficial for the whole team, improving the quality of the work done in this urban project! You
left us with a hand full of colors reflecting your adventure here that also have been full of colours,
emotions and many fun times!

Zonke back to Mawana where she uses telemetry to find the wild monkeys at IVP © S.Mercier

Paige arrival – 11.06

After visa issues delaying her venue and medical emergency in her plane that
had to go back land where it took off after 5h of flight, Paige has finally arrived
safely in SA! While she has been studying chimpanzees and gorillas in previous
experiences, she now comes all the way from the USA to study the vervet
monkeys in Simbithi for the next 8 months. We feel privileged having her here
as she went from the big apes to our little ‘apies’. For her master thesis
supervised by Dr Sofia Forss from the University of Zurich, she will be conducting
experiments to investigate the cognitive skills of the urban monkeys using small
boxes that can be opened in 2 different ways: either pulling or lifting!

© S.Mercier

1
UVP Report
S. Mercier Issue 8 | 10.07.2023

Manon departure – 14.06

After her 5 months of dedicated work with Savanna, Manon went back to
France to finish up her master thesis. Her passion for the monkeys
pushed her to analyse all kind of data we are collecting, from the
questionnaires for which we interviewed 100 residents, to some ‘ad
libitum’ data where we collected all observations whenever the monkeys
were interacting with human artefacts, to ‘focal data’ where we followed
one specific individual for 20 minutes, analysing a total of 90 focals, i.e.
30h of observations! Final results for next month ;) To thank her for her
good work, we all went out at Karibu where some friends joined and
helped her draw a monkey in her hand to leave us a nice handprint in our
golden book!
© S.Mercier

 Monkeys update

Acacia Savanna

Acacia grooming time after an encounter with Savanna © S.Mercier Caipirina recovering well © S.Mercier

We had a bit of emotions following the monkeys this
month. In Acacia, Stephanie saw Aristea, the last born
of Agave the dominant female, being electrocuted on
the fence of Simbithi on the 9th of June! Despite she
felt on the ground incouscious for few minutes, the
group looked well after her and waited for her to be
back before moving on. Luckily she had a full recovery
and she doesn’t seem to have any consequences, she
is now enjoying her life playing with all the other
babies. Few other monkeys also got minor injuries,
such as Rosa being wounded on her leg but all the
individuals are healthy spending most of their time
This month has been very hard and sad for Savanna.
First, Caipirina, an adult female got injured on the
8th of June. Despite her big wound in the back, and
some limping, she recovered really quickly to what
we think could potentially have been a raptor
attack! Absinthe has also been injured on the 12th
with very similar injuries as Caipirina. However,
Absinthe didn’t manage to keep up with the group,
stayed alone for a bit more than a week but became
very weak that she got infected. Unfortunately, her
injuries were so bad that we had to euthanize her
when we finally managed to capture her on the 21st.

2
UVP Report
S. Mercier Issue 8 | 10.07.2023

feeding in the trees or in the grass, and socialising
with each other, especially after the encounters with
Savanna. This month again, it seems that Savanna
come chasing Acacia all the way out of Simbithi,
making it really hard for us to find them and follow
them! On a more positive note, the monkeys also
offered us some beautiful emotions by interacting
with some other wildlife, grooming some duikers and
bushbucks several times!
Lastly, Tequila also got injured on the 26th of June,
again very similar injuries. Despite the injuries were
severe again, she managed to keep up with the
group and is now on her way to recovery.
Unfortunately all these events always happened
when we were not with the monkeys so we didn’t
see what happened exactly… but some crowned
eagles have been seen around in the estate this past
month and Savanna reacted very strongly to a long-
crested eagle that we spotted nearby, better be
careful to these aerial predators!

Home ranges of Acacia (green) and Savanna (orange) ©GAIA GPS

 Some interesting rare behaviours observed this month

o Street lamp used as a mirador

While some monkeys were feeding peacefully on the ground, some

calls were produced by Savanna that came nearby. However, the
landscape was not allowing us to see where the monkeys were as we
were too low. But luckily, living in an estate with close proximity to
humans allows the monkeys to make use of some human artefacts!
Here on the picture, Quince, a 3 year-old male that is growing nicely
and will probably soon disperse, went on top of the street lamp and
was looking in the direction of the calls produced by Savanna. While we
couldn’t see them from our height, we’re convinced that he could see
them with a bit of altitude! But Savanna being indeed nearby decided
to approach us and the whole Acacia group quickly ran back off
retreating from Savanna, explaining the action shot we got from
Quince jumping quickly away from his mirador!

3
UVP Report
S. Mercier Issue 8 | 10.07.2023

o Winter time: it’s getting chilli even for the monkeys

Who said that only humans like to sunbath? When the temperature drops, the monkeys also like to sit
and expose their full body in the sun, probably to warm up a bit. This behaviour is actually very useful to
find them after a cold night: as soon as the sun rises, the vervets climb on top of the tree in which they
slept on to go sunbath. Therefore, by using our binoculars and checking the canopy of the trees, we could
spot them from far as it looks like some pop corn are popping on top of the trees!

Marula sunbathing in trees (left) & Rosa on the address board (right) © S. Mercier

 But they are clearly not starving!

Despite being winter time and chilli, there is still a lot of natural food all around! This is somehow
surprising as it is very different from the wild population that has been studied by the iNkawu Vervet
Project in Mawana Game Reserve (Vryheid), where the savannah gets really dry and the monkeys feed on
sap & seeds. Here in Simbithi, it’s still very green and the monkeys keep on ranging in their territory
finding new items to eat: from the nice fig fruits (Whisky), to the beautiful flowers of the coral tree
(Gumy), all the way to some very interesting things growing out of a dead log! If anyone has ever seen
that and know what it is, please share, we are super keen to hear more about it 

© S. Mercier

4
UVP Report
S. Mercier Issue 8 | 10.07.2023

 Other news

o Citizen science data – many thanks to all of you!

As usual, we are very grateful to have you all on-board in the group, thank you very much for your
participation and all these pins that keep on coming every day! Unfortunately, this month had been a bit
hectic for us with the end of the master students Lindsey & Manon, and the arrival of a new team. So
sadly, we did not manage to keep up to date with all these data we’re receiving, but they are still very
useful. Firstly, they allow us to find the monkeys quicker by just looking at the different locations we
receive. Secondly, these data are still useful to get a better idea of the whole population of the monkeys
in Simbithi (trying to figure out the number of groups and their home ranges). Lastly, these data can be
used in several long-term projects to investigate the ranging routines of the monkeys. So we’ll definitely
improve again on that one to make sure we save all this precious citizen data correctly, so that we can
keep on running some citizen science with all of you!

o The WhatsApp group is still active 

As always, feel free to share the following link and the QR to all
interested residents in joining the group to help us collect more data:
https://chat.whatsapp.com/GnL28i40OHb8GF61nukN9M