Race on to save 1,000 monkeys on hurricane-ravaged research island

CAYO SANTIAGO, Puerto Rico - As thousands of troops and government workers struggle to restore normal life to Puerto Rico, a small group of scientists is racing to save more than 1,000 monkeys whose brains may contain clues to some of the most important mysteries of the human mind.

One of the first places Hurricane Maria hit in the United States territory last month was Cayo Santiago, known as Monkey Island, an outcrop off the east coast that is one of the world's most important sites for research into how primates think, socialize and evolve.

The storm destroyed virtually everything on the island, stripping it of vegetation, wrecking the monkeys' metal drinking troughs and crushing the piers that University of Puerto Rico workers use to bring in bags of monkey chow - brown pellets of processed food that complete the primates' natural vegetation diet.