As the Rich Swarm Costa Rica, 1000s of Monkeys Are Killed
Down past the mango fields, past the river and pock-marked dirt roads, the town of Nosara occupies a dazzling portion of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. Just north, at daybreak, thousands of baby sea turtles push through the sand and stagger their way to the ocean. The jungle teems with hummingbirds and coatis, peccaries and blue morphos and iguanas. Up in the branches, howler monkeys unleash roars that can be heard up to three miles away.
Paradise rarely gets left alone, and it’s no exception here. Once a quaint hideaway for yogis and surfers, Nosara has steadily beckoned more visitors, each cohort seemingly richer than the last. The pandemic accelerated that trajectory. Rental prices in sought-after areas have nearly doubled, locals say, while mega-mansions are selling for $7 million or more.
One casualty of that explosion is the wildlife that inspired much of the region’s popularity to begin with. Howler monkeys are suffering particularly gruesome deaths, from dog attacks, car accidents, and electrocutions caused by uninsulated power lines.
Because of dwindling habitat, “they’re forced to travel either on the ground, where they're vulnerable, or on the power lines, where they get killed,” said Robin Heubel, a retired wildlife biologist who now lives in the area. The electrocutions could largely be prevented by spending a few hundred dollars to insulate each transformer—and a few thousand dollars for every several hundred yards of cable—but nobody is putting up enough money to do it.
Depending on whom you ask, multiple parties are to blame: the power companies, the government, the developers, the home buyers. Undoubtedly, though, the surge of foreign transplants is exacerbating the problem. “With every new building, there’s higher voltage needed, because people are now building two and three story homes,” said Vicki Coan, founder of the nearby Sibu Wildlife Sanctuary. “[And] they want them totally air conditioned.”
The result, she continued, is that “this has been the worst year ever of electrocutions.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-the-rich-swarm-costa-rica-thousands-of-monkeys-are-being-electrocuted
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