Bushbabies Monkey Sanctuary is about an hour’s drive from Johannesburg and Pretoria. Set within the low mountains of the Magaliesberg range, the sanctuary offers a free-roaming forested home to primates that used to be personal pets, or that used to live in zoos or other places of captivity.
Being primates ourselves, we have a fascination with monkeys. And such fascination sometimes leads to people keeping monkeys as pets – often a recipe for disaster.

Bushbabies Monkey Sanctuary in the Magaliesberg mountains, near Johannesburg and Pretoria, provides a free-roaming home for former captive monkeys.

It is 1 of only 8 free-release primate sanctuaries in the world.

The capuchins, lemurs, squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys and bushbabies at the sanctuary were all either pets or bred for the pet trade, or came from zoos. Here they can shake off their former lives in confined spaces and leap from tree to tree, socialise with their own kind (and breed) and learn how to be true monkeys again.

Their home is a 7ha sanctuary with gorges, waterfalls and natural streams – a perfect place for primates.

Bushbabies is a privately run establishment near Hartbeespoort Dam, right next door to a sister organisation, the Elephant Sanctuary Hartbeespoort Dam.

Visitors will be taken on a guided tour through the thickly wooded area on elevated walkways. Guides will point out the monkeys, which live in similar circumstances to their original homes in South America, Central America and Madagascar.

The indigenous bushbabies only rise at sunset, so they’re the only animals you are unlikely to see during the day.

And if you arrive early enough, you may find the ring-tailed lemurs in their favourite meditative pose, warming themselves in the morning sun.

Visitors may not feed the monkeys as they are being 'de-humanised', or 're-wilded', so that they learn to socialise with each other naturally. (There are 12 feeding stations scattered throughout the property.)

A visit to the sanctuary is a thoroughly feel-good experience.