Seth was found by the Security guards and the guides who stay near the Entrance Gate to the Polonnaruwa Nature sanctuary and the Archeology site. His troop was crossing the street when his mother, carrying Seth under her belly, was hit by a passing motorcar and was injured and later died.
We have named him Seth, after the Egyptian God for (also spelled Seth, Sutekh or Seteh) is an ancient god, who was originally the god of the desert, storms, and chaos. Due to developments in the Egyptian language over the 3,000 years that Set was worshipped, by the Greek period, the t in Set was pronounced so indistinguishably from th that the Greeks spelled it as Σεθ (Seth).
Since we could not locate the troop to which Seth belonged we had to raise him at the Camp. He's fed infant formula designed for human babies and seems to thrive on the milk.
He was born with this season's babies, late March, as he's still developing his pre toque and cannot vocalize most calls.
As soon as he was brought to camp he was hand held and given milk by Bill Morris, a New Zealander and Sheran. Seth responds to Sheran's voice (Sheran's 7 years old) well and does a run which is between a hop and a gallop after the boy. We would walk on to the lounge to see that Sheran is absorbed in his school work and Seth is holding on to Sheran's calf, partially sitting on his foot, content and snug. Or Bill keeing Seth in his lap covered in his little towel/blanket and fast asleep. We are very thankful to both these boys for caring for the small toque monkey.
Nap after his feed. He's gotten to suck his thumb like a human baby. If he was in the wild, he'd be suckling on his mother's nipple most of the day.
Seth is quite the climber. We train him to climb trees and to sit on small branches as we have to one day integrate him into a troop of monkeys.
Unfortunately, on one of his outside walking exercises, he was attacked by a male from the Camp Troop. Several infanticide attempts were made by the same male a week earlier where Sheran or I had to scream for help.
This happened on the 3rd of May but just in two days he was healing well and was running around and feeding happily.
Seth is held by Sheran and you can judge how small he is. Seth's head can fit into Sheran's palm.
May 2009
Aged 1year, Seth is released to live with distant cousins.
Researchers did not see the animal for several days.
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