Tourist Attraction in Miami:
Monkey Jungle

Monkey Jungle is a park created by Joseph and Grace DuMond in 1933 as a study center and visitor center dedicated to monkeys living in semi-freedom. The initial core of the park was created by Joseph DuMond, a Connecticut animal behavior scientist, releasing in 1933 six specimens on property in the natural habitat of South Florida. The choice of location was due to the similarity of its climate with that of Southeast Asia, from where the specimens of macaques they had purchased came from. To cope with the economic difficulties of the period of the great depression, starting from 1935 it began to charge a ticket of 10 cents to visitors who attended the park. Initially, there were no protected routes to separate the public from the monkeys. Given the tendency of the monkeys to defend their territory from the invasion of visitors, Joe DuMond decided not to lock the monkeys in a cage, preferring to build protected routes for visitors. When Joe DuMond retired in 1955, his brother Frank took over as director of the park. Under his direction the park expanded and new research projects developed. In 1960 another four acre area was opened, dedicated to the Amazon rain forest, with animals from that region living in an environment created with native South American plants. In August 1992, the center was hit by Hurricane Andrew who destroyed a large part of the vegetation, subsequently progressively recovered. In the center live about 400 primates of 30 different species that live mainly in an open park, with only a few specimens in captivity. Visitors cross the park along paths sheltered by wire mesh tunnels, as protection from animals: this is the reason for the slogan of the park "where the men are in cages and the monkeys run free".

Attractions in Miami