Cayo Santiago


Cayo Santiago, also known as Santiago Island, Isla de los monos, is located at, to the east of Punta Santiago, Humacao, Puerto Rico.

Geography

The island measures approximately, north–south and east–west, including a "Small Cay" which is connected to the main part, of which the northeastern peninsula accounts for about. In the late 1940s, the island was expropriated by Puerto Rico from its private owners and ceded to the University of Puerto Rico. Only researchers are allowed on the island, but tourists can charter a boat to view the island and its primate inhabitants.

Fauna

Since December 1938, the island has been the habitat for a free-ranging population of Rhesus monkeys. The monkeys are the offspring of an original group of 30 monkeys imported from India by Clarence R. Carpenter and the School of Tropical Medicine in San Juan that was operated by Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the University of Puerto Rico. Today, the colony, which numbers over a thousand animals, serves as a research resource supported by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Puerto Rico Caribbean Primate Research Center for investigators from many institutions in the US and several in Europe. A pictorial history on the 75 years of the colony was recently published .
Cayo Batata, a small island located to the southwest of Cayo Santiago, is under the jurisdiction of Humacao and is uninhabited by humans.

Gallery