New Delhi, Sept. 21 -- They found Veera, just a few hours old, tucked between her dead mother's breasts, the umbilical cord still attached to the newborn. The mother had shielded her baby until her last breath. Shoora's exhausted mother, on the other hand, abandoned him as soon as he was born. Shoora and Veera were found in the suburbs of Mumbai that sit on the fringes of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

These tiny bonnet macaques wouldn't survive without their mothers or their troops. Their rescuers were sure of that. Who would nurture them or teach them to find food or fight rivals for territory? Bonnet macaques are social animals and best survive in the troops into which they are born, formed by related females. A few males usually fi...