Kids Saving The Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary Diet
For this Quepolandia issue, our KSTR President, Jennifer, met with KSTR Spokeskid, Dani, and her parents in San Francisco, where they all live part time, to discuss Dani’s articles. Dani already had about 10 articles in her head, all of which her dad will type up while Dani dictates. Dani is all of 7 years old!
Take it away Dani!
Hi, my name is Dani, and I am the spokeskid for KSTR. Today I want to talk about what the animals eat, and why we feed them what we feed them.
First, we have the monkeys. Usually, for the monkeys, in the morning, we give them a fruit salad with Watermelon, Papaya, and other good fruit. In the afternoon, we mix the same fruit salad, but add some vegetables—for example we add sweet potatoes, carrots, and green beans. We give them these foods because all the animals in our sanctuary were at one point in the wild, and the food we’re giving them is like the diet they would have had in the wild. In case you haven’t noticed, monkeys spend a lot of time jumping from tree to tree, across branches. One of the reasons they are doing that, is to look for food—many of the fruits in their diet at KSTR grow in trees in Costa Rica! At the sanctuary, we had 3 squirrel monkeys who needed medicine. They did NOT like the flavor of the medicine. So, we used a syringe to squirt the medicine into a marshmallow, which everybody knows monkeys love! (We normally try to only feed our animals natural food that comes from their habitats, but when we need to get medicine into them, we sometimes use small treats.)
At KSTR, there’s a Capuchin monkey named Moncho, and he’s brown, instead of Black and White—but he’s still a Capuchin monkey! He sometimes gets mistaken for a baby, because he’s smaller than a normal monkey. One time, we were gathering spiders to feed the monkeys. (Monkeys love eating spiders, and catching and eating a live bug helps remind them how to be in the wild!). When we put the jar with 4 spiders in front of the enclosure, we saw Moncho eat 2 spiders—but when we took the jar to move it to another enclosure, it turns out there was only 1 spider left! Moncho snuck an extra spider! Fun fact: monkeys are very smart and can be very sneaky.
In the sanctuary, we also have a Green Parrot, and on his neck he has no feathers—because he used to be a pet, and his owners had a dog. One day, he got loose from his cage, and the dog found him and attacked him. After that, the owners called KSTR, and we took him in with happiness and joy. 
Hello Quepolandia! My name is Dani, and I will be your new Spokeskid for Kids Saving the Rainforest! I am 7 years old, and this is my first article—I hope you enjoy it.
By Mckenzie Wing, Volunteer Coordinator & Biologist
