It was a normal day in the Congo rainforest. The hippos wallowed in the lakes, the cheetahs chased the antelopes and the monkeys swung through the trees on the hunt for bananas. But what the animals didn’t know was that the world’s best hunters were closing on them; men.
With traps and nets they came, capturing one animal after another. They were packed off into a van to be sent to zoos where they would spend the rest of their lives in captivity, torn away from the forest they had loved so much. But there was one animal who had the skill and intelligence to outwit the poachers; Monty the monkey. While many of his troop were taken, Monty had been so absorbed in his task of using a rock to crack open a walnuts shell, that he had not heard his fellow monkeys shriek for help as the poachers grabbed them. It was only when he heard a pelican make a warning squawk that Monty was brought back to the wider world. He glanced up just in time to see a net being thrown. With an agility only a monkey is capable of he twisted away and was instantly leaping from tree to tree, disappearing into the distance.
It wasn’t long before Monty found himself on the road that ran right through the forest. Cautiously peering, he saw that the poachers were finishing to load the animal into the back of a van. All were in nets and from the despairing look their eyes they were already losing hope. Monty gritted his teeth; he needed to save them. However, it was ridiculous to suppose he could do so through force; instead he would have to rely on foolery. A plan already forming in his head, Monty swung down to the forest floor, as quietly as if he were not moving at all. He crept behind the van to where the poachers rucksacks were waiting to be loaded. Convinced he didn’t have time to catch his breath, he tore through the rucksack, and on finding what he needed, bounded off into the trees again. Monty smiled once in the branches ; Monty two, poachers nil.
As the van started on it’s way with much cursing from the angry poachers who’d discovered the remnants of their packs, Monty dropped onto the roof from a tree high above. Moving his way cautiously atop the rumbling van, he found the padlock which was keeping the animals locked in. Using the piece of wire he had managed to snag off the poacher, he got to work on the padlock. Monty turned back to the back of the van and eyed critically the lock. Within 5 minutes it was open.
Moving into the van, a cry of fear came up from the animals, thinking for a second that Monty was a poacher. Hushing them up quickly, Monty set to work with his newly “borrowed” knife ripping apart the nets, after which each animal quickly bounded out of the van and fled off the road and into the forest. As he was in the process of freeing the last few animals, one of which was a rather intimidating rhinoceros, Monty noticed that the van had slowed to a halt. A few muffled words, a door opening and then slamming, followed by the sound of feet moving outside, with each footstep gradually growing louder. Monty was horrified; the poachers were obviously going to check on the animals. Working frantically now he ripped through the final few nets.
Just as the poacher reached the back, a puzzled look on his face from the widely opened doors, the rhinoceros came charging through, with Monty riding on his back. The poachers could only look in disbelief at the empty cargo. And that was how Monty saved the animals of the forest.