Last week Ana and I went to see the monkeys at Inti Wara Yassi, a refuge for abused animals in Bolivia, where the little squirrel monkeys dangle from the tips of the branches in the trees around the visitor’s center.

Inti Wara Yassi takes in animals that have been in some form of captivity: circuses, cages and even as pets. Ideally the animals are released to the wild, but most of the animals are highly habituated to people, and there is little wild forest remaining around the park, so most of the animals stay nearby.

The young women at the reception desk had lost all interest in educating the visitors. She discouraged us from reading the informational displays so she could drone out the list of rules and fees. She spoke at a whisper while her TV boomed in the background. She kept referring to us, with brutal honesty, as “tourists� instead of as “visitors,� “guests� or “the public.�

Because the animals are released prisoners, one would expect them to be a little messed up. A sign in the park says that some of the animals have “serious ethological problems of behavior� (graves problemas etológicos de comportamiento). Since the word “ethological� merely means “animal behavior� it adds no new meaning to the sentence, although it is a great way to show off one’s vocabulary.

And then we hiked up to El Mirador, the peak overlooking this park which was built in the old installations of the cable car which once spanned the Espírutu Santo River. The rusty cables still hang over the water.

Two young couples and their small children joined us. They were from the highlands, but had lived for years here in the humid tropics. Then we were joined by a troop of large spider monkeys. One of the little girls screamed in terror. When the monkeys are two feet away they seem a lot bigger than when they are in the zoo. They had come down from their natural habitat in the treetops to frisk the humans of their candy and junk food. The monkeys grabbed water bottles out of people’s hands, and then threw the water to the floor once they tasted it and realized it was not soda pop.

One over-habituated mother monkey with a half-grown baby crawled into Ana’s lap and went to sleep.

Then a large troop of men came to the top. They were in early middle age and far wilder than the monkeys. They yelled so loudly they woke up the mom asleep in Ana’s arms. When one of the monkeys climbed onto the back of one of the guys he shrieked for his friends to take his picture for Facebook.

For good reason the park staff become disenchanted with the visitors, most of whom seemed wildly out of place in the woods. A long-haired young Englishman ignored the “do not feed the animals� sign, took out a bag of peanuts in the shell, and fed them one by one to the monkeys.

We had learned at the reception desk that we had to leave our backpacks at reception, and that we could not take in food. Now, surrounded by frustrated, sugar-loving monkeys, I could see the reasons behind the rules. As with an extension message for farmers, the underlying background principles count. It is not enough to tell people what to do. We also want to know why. In this case:

• These monkeys have lost all fear of people

• The monkeys are addicted to sugary snacks

• Processed food is bad for the animals

• Leave behind your backpacks so you won’t be tempted to feed them

The park was littered with plastic trash. Ana said we should go back to town, buy trash bags and pick up all the garbage in the park. On our second walk up to the peak we saw that all those peanuts had given the monkeys diarrhea. So there was another reason why one should not feed the animals.

• Even peanuts give monkeys diarrhea.

In the future, managing wild animals will become more and more like ranching, as there are fewer animals, less wild land, and more poachers and more guys with chain saws. The reserves will need more staff, more money and more collaboration from the public. Part of the solution will be to tell visitors the reasons why, in words that everyone understands, and to make people feel like constituents, not like a nuisance.