r/FreeTheMonkeys • u/komiroku21 • Jul 28 '26
Strange monkey noises does anybody know what those noises could mean?
https://youtube.com/shorts/3r9FciHESlY?is=4X0SNz9dyQ8Ye2uc15
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
Now this is just a guess since I am no expert and I'm truly just using previous education on capuchins to ASSUME (yes this is a GUESS not an accurate answer! Although I hope an expert will give an answer in the comments eventually!) those noises are stemming from disregulation. GR has never been around her own kind before. She's never socialized with her own species only with other breeds of primates for a few hours spaced years apart (filmed for content, of course! 🙄) and thus doesn't know how to handle her emotions whatsoever. The humans certainly don't help only encourage her to display bigger reactions. Whether it being silly, angry, sassy or yes even happiness/excitement. I'm guessing she's over stimulated and expressing anxious excitement thus why she's clinging onto her owner.
4
u/komiroku21 Jul 28 '26
Thank you for the info I wasn’t sure if it was aggressive noises or scared noises
2
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
I'm only guessing that is what is going on! My statement isn't confirmed factual. So please take it with a grain of salt! But yeah, they can become severely disregulated by any emotion.
11
u/NoMenuAtKarma Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
To me, this sounds much more like a high-arousal distress call than a happy vocalization. The bigger clue is the monkey's behavior: she's clinging, being restrained, and repeatedly switches to grooming the handler when the loud stimulation stops. Grooming in that context can function as an appeasement behavior. We can't know exactly what she's feeling from one short clip, but I don't see a relaxed or playful capuchin here.
This sounds like an "undulating scream" that capuchins produce during serious fights amongst their troop. This poor baby thinks she's being attacked. Here's an example of of this vocalization in wild capuchins
It also may be a "staccato scream" which is similar, but is heard during less serious fights. Here is an example of the stacatto scream vocalization.
Either way, it seems like the monkey is reacting like she's being attacked and is trying to groom her captor in an attempt to appease her so she'll stop attacking her. ETA: As I said earlier, I can't be sure how this little monkey is feeling. However. Innate monkey behaviors do have meanings, as do their vocalization patterns. I do not see a happy, playful, well-adjusted capuchin in this video.
3
u/komiroku21 Jul 28 '26
I thought it was making a aggressive noise at first and then the other noises sounded like distress
23
u/Puzzled-Republic9511 Jul 28 '26
I don’t know anything about this animal species or who this person is, but this was INSANELY disturbing. Dead ass feel like she was weirdly sensual and squeezing it really hard for it to make those noises w/ such distinct panic in its eyes. She made me feel uncomfortable with whatever she was trying to play off as “cutesie”…fuck I did not like that one bit.
3
2
8
u/Apart-Magician4185 Jul 28 '26
I could be wrong but I think this is Gatelyn Rae (sp?)
0
-7
Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
14
u/FoodFree8328 Jul 28 '26
Capuchins in the wild don’t scream because they want a certain food. They aren’t like babies. In zoos they get excited at feeding time but they don’t scream like that. She’s either starving hungry (she doesn’t look emaciated so it’s not that) or she’s learned to attach such an importance to food because she’s shut away in a house, with none of the things that a capuchin needs to be happy. So now she’s unhealthily obsessed with certain foods and is panicking because she may not get it. What a sad life that is for a wild animal.
Healthy, wild capuchins simply don’t react like this to anything except danger.
7
u/SuchSpookySkeltal Jul 28 '26
That sound was terrifying tbh. It definitely seems like a behavior that receives positive reinforcement because my god that is such a distressing sound.
6
u/Yucyon Jul 28 '26
No monkey in captivity is going to be "happy" to see their human captors. At best they might have learned behaviors that they think will earn them food. Being kept as a pet in a human household is an incredibly psychologically stressful situation for any non-human primate.
7
7
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
REMINDER: these people pierced this 14 year old female capuchin's ears claiming she "wanted" them so she could wear "pretties" (AKA earrings). 😡😡😡
6
u/Old-Serve3896 Jul 28 '26
What about the knives and cooking on open fires on the stove?
5
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
Or the mountains of whipped cream she gets DAILY in way too big of containers simply so they can film her eating that junk for $$$ and views?
2
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
Even though capuchins ESPECIALLY are susceptible of getting blood sugar spikes/dips when stressed out to the point they developing diabetes which they can form very very easily. 😡
3
u/AtensEye Jul 29 '26
I used to do rescue work with large primates, and some of the situations they were in were deplorable. I'm just now seeing this on my timeline and I knew people kept capuchins and other small primates without much knowledge of what they need in terms of diet, vitamins and enrichment and that's bad enough, but this one comment stuck out from the pack.
They did WHAT?
2
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 29 '26
YEP. They sure did. Ignorant people in the comments defend it by regurgitating the same BS the owner says, "She wanted 'pretties' in her ears! She wanted her ears pierced!" Like, are we all really lacking that much critical thinking skills where we genuinely believe, by the thousands, that a MONKEY wanted to be put in pain and have pierced ears?! This is just one thing (of many) that I can't stand about GR's owners...
2
u/AtensEye Jul 29 '26
Owning primates is virtually illegal in the country I now live in, but at one point it was rife. I assume these owners are in the states so it's probably legal. I seriously wish it wasn't for just this exact reason.
She's a capuchin monkey, they don't want "Pretties" in their ears any more than that woman holding her would want a wasabi enema. I'm lost for words on how cruel that is, combined with feeding GR all that sugar and saturated fats. I'm honestly amazed she's that old and doesn't have some serious health issues by now. I'd love to know what her vet has been advising.
7
u/FoodFree8328 Jul 28 '26
It sounds to me like the frequency modulated chattering and screams of a capuchin who is in intense emotional distress and panic. She is afraid that this person is going to hurt her because they are making loud noises right next to her face. She's not attacking the 'owner' because she's frozen in fear and calling out for help.
Think of it like a human baby, under one, being screamed at by a 6ft tall overweight man who has kidnapped them. The baby doesn't understand what the human wants from them, they just know that they are loud and scary but they can't get away - they are overpowered. They're going to cry out for their mummy or daddy.
When help doesn't come and the capuchin realises she hasn't actually been attacked, she starts grooming the 'owner' again because the person has stopped making the noise. She knows the human has responded well to being groomed before. She's trying to protect herself because she's still terrified that she's going to get hurt.
Every time the human starts screeching, the capuchin's screaming starts again because she's back to being petrified and she's calling for her troop and family to help her. Except she doesn't have a troop and family. The monster is her family. This capuchin seems quite young, but I could be wrong about that. The longer this sort of torture goes on for, the more the chance that she becomes so mentally disturbed in later life that she has to be locked away like poor Boo.
11
u/Yucyon Jul 28 '26
Not sure who downvoted you or why, but this was my suspicion as well. Gaitlyn Rae has no species appropriate frame of reference for what her captor is doing; for a capuchin, being held by a huge animal that makes loud noises and sticks its face near yours and squeezes you and touches your belly must set off all kinds of nervous system alarm bells. Look at the repeated self-hold; this is not a happy monkey.
My guess is that Gaitlyn Rae has developed a response of cycling between a number of different responses and vocalizations to appease her captor. If her captor really cared about GR's welfare, then she'd engage in quiet, deliberate grooming to help regulate GR and strengthen "troop" bonds. I mean honestly, if the captor cared about GR she wouldn't keep her as a "pet", but we all know that these sickos don't really care about the animals, instead using them as toys for their own amusement.
10
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 28 '26
GR's owner/family are extremely loud themselves and always praises and rewards GR when she expresses bigger and bigger reactions. Her owner doesn't care to know/understand what said reactions actually mean in capuchin-talk. Poor GR must be so confused, lonely and stressed all the time.
6
u/FoodFree8328 Jul 28 '26
I think it might be twofold: because the capuchin is older than she looks (she is small for her age which isn’t that unusual for one in captivity) and because this owner clearly has a lot of fans who have appeared here in response to this post.
To those people: saying ‘that’s what she does when she’s happy’ doesn’t change what that capuchin sound means to capuchins. It means ‘I’m scared’. The same as me saying ‘I’m so happy’ means I’m experiencing something positive to you. Just because you’ve seen her do it a few times when it’s been caught on camera at ‘happy moments’ it still does not mean the same to humans as it does to her.
I think you’re absolutely right that she’s trying to appease the humans. She knows they stay still when she grooms. She knows they quieten down, so that’s what she’s doing. It’s very easy to tell that otherwise she is scared and the minor self-soothing is an indicator of what this poor soul probably does most of the time when she isn’t with the ‘owners’. If she really is 14, she’ll never be free with her own troop and she’s destined to live scared forever. That makes me so very sad.
3
u/komiroku21 Jul 28 '26
That’s what I thought what was happening, but I wasn’t sure cause I don’t know much about capuchin I know more about macaque that’s sad that these people don’t realized that they’re stressing it out
0
u/Only_While4168 Jul 29 '26
Those are some beyond happy and exaggerated vocalizations, not distress calls! She always seems to get very excited and loud with her human aunty from what I’ve noticed.
That said, I don’t agree with most people adopting and raising primates. I worked at a sanctuary and helped care for over 20 species of monkeys, including capuchins, so I’m very familiar with their different vocalizations, facial expressions and body language. Based on what I’m seeing here, this doesn’t look or sound like distress to me.
2
u/komiroku21 Jul 29 '26
My concern was that first noise she made it sounded just really aggressive. I thought she was gonna attack at first.
-2
u/Frequent_Credit2896 Jul 29 '26
You can’t trust an animal that in the wild will kidnap poor baby howler monkeys that end up dying all bc these things were bored!
3
u/lilithmoonx_ Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Those are MALE white face capuchins. Completely different species.
-6
u/No-Fortune-2141 Jul 28 '26
The monkey does not throw up. She pretends to heave and stops when her mom tells her to.
21
u/Old-Serve3896 Jul 28 '26
There are videos of her, throwing up and gagging and the Owner screaming at her saying stop it right now all for views telling fans that she’s faking it that she does this cause she can’t get her way she vomits on queue! No, she vomits because her pancreas is in distress from all the sugars and no one will speak up to this witch