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[Josh Greenman <joshg1973 AT yahoo.com>]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020903/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_kenya_monkey_1

Monkey adopts frail kitten

Tue Sep 3, 1:57 AM ET

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Sitting on a rooftop in a Nairobi suburb, a monkey delouses the baby cradled in her arms, but this baby is different -- it's a kitten.

Reuters Photo

Frail from hunger and cold, the dying white kitten lies limp in the monkey's arms. Its new "mother" will not let anyone near to feed it.

Residents passing in the street below pay scant attention to the unusual scene which has attracted television crews in recent days. The monkey has been roaming the neighbourhood for the past 18 months, snatching unattended kittens.

"I have seen three different kittens," resident Michael Ngari told Reuters on Monday. "The first was small -- I think it died earlier. The second stayed for a longer time. Now this is the third one."

Swinging from the monkey's mouth, the frail kitten meows piteously as the monkey jumps on to a different roof.

The monkey accepts gifts of bananas from residents but has made no attempt to feed the kitten, slowly dying without its mother's milk.

"I could explain this with the lioness and the oryx," says another resident, Paul Mwangi, referring to a lioness that repeatedly adopted baby oryxes in a Kenya game park earlier this year.

"Just as the lioness couldn't get cubs and substituted with oryx calves, so it is with the monkey," he said.

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