New enclosure no monkey business

After more than 50 years in an enclosed exhibit, Natureland’s capuchin monkeys are getting a brand-new open enclosure to stretch their legs and swing their tails.

The new, more natural environment will see Natureland’s six tufted capuchins move to a 425sqm open enclosure, seven-times larger than their previous 50-year-old caged area, with its own heated den to keep them warm overnight in the winter.

The enclosure will be the first infrastructure project to make use of the ‘toe’ of the park that was incorporated into the lease in 2022 and will see the far corner of the park, that is currently home to goats and ducks, converted to the primates’ new home.

Downer regional manager for transport and infrastructure, Drew Hayes, who is also the newly-appointed chair of Natureland Wildlife Trust’s board, spearheaded the charge for the project.

Local civil construction companies have banded together to donate their time, machinery and materials to build the new enclosure at no cost to the animal park.

Natureland manager Leah Foster says, while the community have really come to the party to get the project across the line, the final piece of the puzzle will be raising enough funds to build the den.

“It won’t be much, but we will need a little bit of help from the community to get this across the line,” she says.

Natureland’s ability to upgrade its enclosures over the past eight years has been limited due to a reduction in funding.

Drew is also on the committee of the Nelson/Marlborough branch of Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ), so was ideally placed to marshal local members to assist with the project.

“We identified that this was a project that CCNZ could get involved with, because it’s predominantly civil and a lot of the materials we need are civil supplies,” Drew says.

Leah says the new modern enclosure would be a significant upgrade and would offer the tree-dwelling primates 5m-tall posts to climb and sit on top of, which they really enjoy.

“We’re excited to move our capuchins into a place we know they’re going to thrive in. Creating a more engaging environment for them is really important and it will be a much more natural setting than where they are currently residing.

“Capuchins do better when they can see what’s going on, in the new space they’ll be able to see the playground and the picnics and birthday parties, they’ll love it.”

Leah says monkeys are intelligent primates, like humans, and capuchin monkeys are considered one of the smartest monkey species, capable of using tools to crack nuts and use rocks as projectile weapons.

For this reason, to prevent escapes at Natureland, the enclosure will be surrounded by a 3.5m moat of water to keep the aquaphobic monkeys inside, with an electrified perimeter fence to back things up in case of any monkey business from the Nelson troop.

Planning for the project began in March with hopes to complete work by the end of September, so the troop can get settled in their new home in time for summer.

Leah says once they are moved, the current enclosure will be able to be re-purposed, potentially for a species that is new to the zoo.

Visit here to contribute to building the new den.