The Qoph Park

Secluded away from asphalt roads in a rural area between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a park brimming with carob and pine trees. A silent stream wanders alongside a dirt path, occasionally diverging to form moats, and in turn, miniature islands. Because of the cool shade from the trees and the pleasant rolling hillside, the entrance to the park serves as a host to wedding parties almost every weekend. If you manage to slip past the workers setting up chairs for a ceremony and avoid the many turn-offs leading to alcoves containing small benches and hanging candles, you'll find yourself at a green metal gate with a padlock the size of a brick. While most visitors would never make it to this gate (being lured instead by the warm candlelight and festive clatter below) it was here that Lior, Maya, Tamar, and I met for an appointment yesterday evening at 6:00pm.

Maya is a friend of Lior's and does monkey research at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan. Tamar is an advocate for animal rights. However, rather than protest animal research by sending bombs and razor-blades in the mail to primate researchers, Tamar chooses to fight for monkey rights in a slightly different manner. The gate she met us at last night is the entrance to a monkey sanctuary where she urges scientists to bring their monkeys to retire and recuperate once their experiments are complete. Tamar meets regularly with scientists to offer insight about what she's learned from observing primates so that they can implement better care in their research facilities.

As Tamar spoke with the three of us in a hodgepodge of English and Hebrew, she let us through the gate and showed us around the park. A small stream of water was now the only barrier between us and the various monkeys. After gliding past a couple lemurs and a goose (who had recently decided to move into the lemurs' territory and was annoying them with her loud honking), Tamar stopped in front of field where a colony of twenty-five "crab-eating" macaque monkeys live. The first monkey I noticed was a little female sitting on a branch with her legs hanging over the edges and her toes pointing inwards. Her palms were folded neatly in her lap and her tail dangled below. In addition to wearing a stylish mohawk like the rest of the clan, she also sported a rather scruffy beard. I can't help thinking that if I'd seen her sitting like that in the middle of a forest, I would have sworn I'd just had a magical encounter with a little elf or gnome.

Over the next hour, we watched the "crab-eating" macaques eat their evening snack of veggies and play with each other as dusk approached. A few of the monkeys were overweight from eating tasty treats and had little pot bellies. There were about five monkeys less than a year old; they enjoyed scurrying along the tree branches and chasing after their mothers. When two of the monkeys decided to play, they would touch the soles of their feet together to maintain some distance but would then use their hands and mouths to groom and nibble at each other in a friendly way. Tamar told us that some of the monkeys had started using sticks to "draw" with in the dirt and that others had started a game involving rocks, the rules of which she was still trying to decipher! One of the most interesting social encounters we observed was when the alpha male (the "king") sauntered down from his perch. He walked on all fours, swaying his large testicles in an obscene manner. All the other monkeys nearby made sure to give their ruler a large berth, scurrying off to the side. After a couple minutes, the alpha male proceeded to mount the nearest female. The female wanted nothing to do with the fat pig-like creature and turned around and gave him a swift slap to the head before running off. The alpha male must have felt that sex was a much more pleasurable task than law enforcement, and chose to harass some other female rather than reprimand the former.

Before the darkness of night completely settled in, Tamar took us over to see the capuchin monkeys. The thirty or so monkeys were very eager to have us as company and jumped up and down as though they were on miniature pogo sticks. The colony had several little babies and we all observed how the babies were the center of everyone's attention. Just like when a person brings a newborn to a family gathering, all the monkeys would gather around the mothers of the little babies, making kissy faces and chirping noises. Tamar told us that all the members of the colony strut proudly around their island when a mother allows them to carry her infant! She also told us about Kiwi, a capuchin whose mother died giving birth and who Tamar had to raise. Tamar would carry Kiwi around on her arm all day and go sit with her on the capuchin island for hours on end, allowing her to become acquainted with her species. After months of doing this, Tamar finally noticed a male who took a keen interest in Kiwi, so she introduced the two in a separate room. Immediately, the male took Kiwi as his adopted daughter. The first thing he did was carry her on his back over to the alpha male, and once the alpha male had approved of the adoption, he carried Kiwi over to the other mothers and joined them in their little day-care club! Ironically, nobody had remembered who Kiwi's real mother was, and when Kiwi's older brother became "king," Kiwi remained in the lowly peasant status that her adopted father belonged too. If that's not a good plot for a soap opera, I don't know what is!

At 8:30 Maya, Lior, and I thanked Tamar and said goodbye. We strolled back down the hillside and, because there was no other way out, walked right through the middle of a wedding reception! Lior drove me back to Rehovot and the two of us made plans to make another visit to Tamar's monkey sanctuary. It had been a wonderful evening… and there were still baboons, spider monkeys, and marmosets to be seen!