Nikon Coolpix Camera is Monkeyproof??

I've been volunteering at a wildlife organization called Inti Wara Yassi in the Bolivian jungle for the last two months.  We have about 700 animals with over 20 species.  I walked a puma named ¨Gato¨ through the jungle for about 8 hours each day for the first month and now I've been walking another puma named Leoncio.  In order to get to Gato´s cage, I have to walk past two of our monkey parks.

The first thing anyone must know if they are going to be around monkeys is, they are like trained thieves.  They will steal anything they can get their hands on and you will never get anything back.  Therefore, it is very important to lock up everything you bring around the monkeys securely.

One particular day, I forgot to lock one of the pockets on my backpack and when I walked through our monkey park, one of the monkeys jumped on my back and went through my backpack.  The monkey got my Nikon Coolpix camera out of the unlocked pocket.  He proceeded to take the camera out of the camera case and then figured out how to turn the camera on and off.  He did this for about 10 minutes and then figured out how to open the battery compartment.  After opening the battery compartment, he took out the battery and the sim card and threw them out of a tree and into the jungle somewhere.  Then he started banging the camera on a tree and continued to do this for another 10 minutes until he got bored and then threw the camera out of the tree and into the jungle.

The next day, three of my friends and I went back to the tree that the monkey was banging the camera on to see if we could find any of the camera components.  We ended up finding everything: the camera, camera case, battery (half chewed up), and sim card.  I was shocked that the camera barely had any scratches on the screen; despite the fact that the monkey spent 10 minutes banging it against a tree.  And I was even more shocked when I put the half chewed up battery and sim card back in the camera and the camera still turned on and worked perfectly.

The Nikon Coolpix may be indestructible; or at least ¨Monkey Proof¨.