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Article: Trained by tourists: Gambia's green monkeys suffer from overexposure.(COMMENTARY)(vervet monkeys' health condition )
- Article from:
- Our Planet
- Article date:
- February 13, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Earth Action Network, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It's not only among humans that obesity is a major health problem. In Bijilo Forest Park in The Gambia, it is the green monkeys who are piling into the fast food and risking early-onset diabetes. Years ago, these monkeys foraged for their food. They worked hard, expended energy and ate wild foods appropriate for a wild primate. They were healthy. Today, they feast on ready-prepared food and what amounts to poison for animals is being handed to them by the very people who pay to see them living in their natural environment--tourists.
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One of the most densely populated and poorest countries in Africa, The Gambia opened Bijilo to the ...