Monkey Queen: One Woman’s Exotic World & Her Struggle To Maintain It

A lesson in primates, passion projects, and perseverance

When a contact of mine mentioned she’d done a job for a lady who has a monkey zoo in her backyard, I knew I had to investigate further.

I mean — A monkey zoo? Run by a lady in her backyard?? I had so many questions.

Part of what piqued my interest so quickly was the fact that it was so close to home. Who would’ve guessed a magical world of monkeys had been hiding round the corner all my life? I told my partner about it, my family. I told friends in the area too. And so, having built it up enough, I hopped on Google and there it was — a private primate sanctuary, ten minutes up the road in the backcountry of my neighbourhood.

As I scrolled through the page, I was greeted with a dozen pictures of various monkeys, each with their name and a short blurb beneath. It was clear that their caretaker had put a lot of love and care into this primate passion project of hers.

But as I searched for contact info — a phone number or street address — I couldn’t find anything. There was a map, but it was mysteriously unlabelled. No names. Nothing. All I could find was a generic ‘info@’ email address, buried in the footer — but if this operation was all wrapped up, (which it looked like it was), I figured I’d be unlikely to get a reply. Bugger.

I emailed nonetheless and went about my day.

“Hello?” I said, as I received a call from a private number the following day.

“Hello there,” a sweet voice on the other side said, “This is Helen calling from the primate sanctuary, how are you?” (name changed for privacy)

“Oh! Helen! Lovely to hear from you!”

“I have to tell you, I got your email and I’ve actually wound things down,” she said.

I’d been bracing for this news, “Oh that’s okay Helen, not to worr — ”

“ — but because you mentioned the magic word,” she said (I’d mentioned the supplier’s name who I heard about it through), “I’d love to give you a private tour of the sanctuary.”

“Wow, thank you Helen,” I said, “Is it okay if I bring my partner and my mum?” I thought they’d get a kick out of it.

“Yes of course,” Helen replied. We set a date and time, and with haste, I added a magical monkey mystery tour in to my calendar.

The day has come.

The GPS takes us up a weaving country road, lined with eucalyptus trees, fruit stalls, and signs on people’s driveways for cat boarders and pet resorts — it seems everyone up here has a soft spot for nature.

Helen is waiting at the gate. She’s wearing a cream-coloured cashmere longsleeve, beige pants and Gucci sneakers. Her skin is the same colour as her strawberry blonde hair — smooth and well-kept in a nice neat bob. She’s not what you’d expect of a self-made zookeeper.

“Great timing — I just got to the gate myself,” Helen says as we greet her. “And you found the place alright?”

We exchange pleasantries as we begin to wander on to Helen’s property.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear ‘backyard monkey zoo’, I picture something super low-rent — a small, corrugated iron cage in someone’s shed, with chicken wire wrapped around it and about ten monkeys crammed inside on branches and broomsticks.

But arriving instantly dispels that idea. Helen’s property is lush — a green sprawling acreage complete with weeping willows, a white peacock, a Japanese bridge over a man-made pond, and a gleaming white plantation-style house plonked in the middle of it all. Around the back of the house are a series of giant state-of-the-art enclosures, each about the size of half a tennis court — and filled with hanging ropes, shrubbery, deadwood and planks for the monkeys to climb along, as well as woodchips on the ground and platforms suspended from the roof.

“My brother helped me build these enclosures,” Helen says with a subtle smile.

As we reach the first enclosure, we see our first monkeys of the day — two adult Spider Monkeys, latched with their leathery hands onto the side of the enclosure, using their prehensile tails for added support. On the ground nearby, there’s a big yellow bucket filled to the brim with peanuts which they’re both eagerly eyeing.

“This is Bingo, and this is BeeBee,” Helen points. “They’re brothers and they’re both in their forties. I’ve had them in my care for 26 years.”

“26 years? That’s almost as old as me,” I say. We start feeding them peanuts through the wires, which they grab, rip open and shove into their gobs. “How did you come into them?” I ask.

“Well I had a husband, and we got the monkeys together,” Helen explains as she looks at the brothers. “Then he left and, well, I was left with the monkeys.”

Bingo and BeeBee hug each other. Helen smiles.

“They do that,” she says. “They make a great howling noise at night when a possum gets on the roof. They’re very much like us, you know.”

We pick up the yellow bucket and the four of us caper across the lawn toward the next enclosure.

In this enclosure, there’s about six or so Capuchin monkeys — one of whom is an ex-star from The Footy Show, as Helen tells us. Capuchins are smaller than Spider Monkeys, and have shiny black tufts of fur atop their heads, a little like Hugh Jackman in Wolverine. Helen explains they’re quite wily, so we have to throw peanuts to them from a safe distance.

“What do you feed them?” my partner asks.

“Many things,” Helen says. “They eat peanuts — and bananas of course. But I also give them strawberries and broadbeans in their pods. They really like radishes too...”

I’ve locked eyes with a young Capuchin close to the wire. He tilts his head and I tilt it to match. He tilts it the other way, I match it too. I smile. He smiles.

“They’re really just like us,” I remark.

“These ones have a social order. I think, these three here, are bullies to that one back there”, Helen points to a visibly smaller Capuchin hanging way back in the shadows, away from all us other hominids.

Helen goes on to explain that years ago, you didn’t need a license or anything to keep animals like these. People had lions as pets. But in the 90's, stricter policies came in to protect these animals and control who owns them. Helen spends a lot of her days keeping up with the requirements of her Exotic Animal License.

“Have you always had animals?” my partner asks.

“I was always a cat and pony girl,” Helen says. “But I didn’t study zookeeping until after the monkeys.”

‘The monkeys’, like it was a life event — said in the same way you’d say ‘the kids’ or ‘the wedding’.

Walking around Helen’s estate, I begin to notice there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.

“Who else looks after the monkeys with you, Helen?” I ask.

“I’ve got two other people who help me. I met them when I was studying — one of them works at the zoo,” she says. “And I’ve got my cats.” A cat purrs up against her leg.

Helen gestures toward the next set of enclosures, “Let’s see the Macaques now.”

I’m not sure if you can tell or not, but Helen is emerging as a somewhat mysterious character. ‘Keeping monkeys must be fun,’ surely everyone thinks. But as we get brief glimpses into her life — her being left with the monkeys, her later-in-life education, her cats and her hip (which is beginning to play up) — a more 3-dimensional picture emerges. Of sacrifices and worries and an imposed sort of solitude. Of human hardship, and an all-consuming retreat into the animal world…

We enter the next set of enclosures, set a little further back from the house, a little smaller, a little more ramshackle. This is Helen’s first generation of enclosures and, she tells us, home to some of her most precious monkeys.

Inside each are differing groups of Rhesus and Crab Eating Macaques, split into separate enclosures according to their personality matches and aggression levels. Missy and Biffy are girlfriend and boyfriend. Rani is fat and slow-moving — Helen describes her as one of her “naughtiest and loudest residents”. There’s one with anger issues, who leaps up against the cage and rattles it violently as we pass. Another one yawns and we see shining white incisors.

“He’s not yawning,” Helen chimes in. “He’s showing you his teeth. It’s a show of dominance.”

Helen explains the various places these Macaques have hailed from — the zoo had to palm some off, a trio were retired from the circus and now get into fights with each other. A couple have romances with each other. A few others have behavioural problems, and another, Ernie, is close to 80 years old — he hobbles around like an old man because of arthritis that addles his body.

“Ernie would be euthanised if he was anywhere else,” Helen says glumly. “But I think that’s such a shame. This is how it would be in the wild. Nature will say when it’s time to go.”

We’re beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by the immensity of Helen’s project. It’s been about three hours by this point, and we reach the final enclosure.

“Where’s Milly? Milly!” Helen cooeys in a high-pitched squeaky voice. “Where are you, Milly?”

A Macaque pokes its head out from a wooden heatbox.

“There’s Milly,” Helen says relieved. “In all these years, Milly is the only one to have ever gotten away from me. I was in her enclosure to feed them one day, and I thought I closed the door — I did close the door — But she must’ve gotten up on the eaves…”

Helen points up into the guttering of the enclosure.

She continues, “I went to do my headcount later that day and realised, hang on, there’s one missing. I thought ‘oh god’ — because you have to call the Agriculture Department if a monkey goes missing. Because if they get out onto farms they can decimate the stone fruit crops. So you have to go through umpteen government agencies and authorities when one escapes.

I was waiting for a callback when the phone rang and I picked it up — and it was one of my neighbours saying, “I think one of your monkeys is in our backyard”. And sure enough, the chap next door, he’d spotted Milly on the porch and put a box over her, and he brought her back.”

“It was such a relief,” finishes Helen. She peers at Milly, “I keep an eye on her now…”

As we wrap up and walk back toward our car across the lawns, I ask Helen what her plans for the future are.

“I might be getting some baboons in soon,” she says casually.

“That’s amazing,” we say.

“And I’m thinking of doing high teas. Monkey high teas,” she reiterates.

We say our goodbyes — to Helen, her monkeys, her cats and her peacocks, and the magical world she’s created in a close-by corner of planet Earth. And yet, leaving, I can’t help but feel there’s an element of mystery still around her.

Where others see ‘happy monkey funtime’, she must see a weird exotic duty that’s uniquely hers to shoulder, day in and day out, despite a fatiguing body and a wanting to wind things down. There’s a hint of solitude amidst the busyness too — no mention of kids, except that she doesn’t want any running round her property. And surely there aren’t too many people in the world you can confide in about the burden of your monkey zoo…

Sensing this burden, I emailed Helen in the aftermath of our visit to ask her about the weight of responsibility she feels to her beloved primates, and whether it ever overwhelms her. Her response was that my message was “timely” — she had just had a “little accident which required hospitalisation” and had sent her into a “spiral of depression”.

“On one hand I am proud of what I have achieved with my animals,” Helen explains, “But also, I am completely overwhelmed with anxiety about the responsibility I have created for myself.”

Amid the struggle, it is clear Helen loves her monkeys —they give her purpose and a sense of great pride. And connection — in the form of random strangers off the internet like us, and sprightly young zookeepers who help her each week, and neighbours who let her know when Milly runs loose, and hopefully soon, little old ladies downing tea and crumpets. (I suppose that’s the way with passion projects — depleting on one hand, restorative on another…)

Overall, I’m left with the impression of an extraordinary woman doing something rather unusual and altogether admirable — caring for the frailest of our primal cousins, outcasts of the petworld, in the quiet of her life and without much show or sparkle. On one level, Helen has created every pony girl’s dream — a full-sized monkey wonderland in her own backyard. On another, she’s made something more— a family of misfits to which she is the mum.

I think about the improbability of this all — the unlikelihood of it all. The chance that I happened to ask a supplier, who happened to have worked with Helen, who happened to be generous enough to give us a tour.

I wonder, if you asked around, what worlds might be hiding in your own backyard?

It might just be a monkey zoo.