When the attractions business gets stressful, Sharon DuMond unlocks an electric fence at Monkey Jungle, walks seven minutes down a lush and shady path, and quietly communes with a dozen hungry squirrel monkeys.

``It's one of my places to kind of escape the world,'' DuMond says as the cat-sized primates cling to her hair and gingerly snatch dried cranberries from a plastic box in her hand.

Closed to the public since the early 1990s, this exclusive corner of Monkey Jungle provides simian serenity but zero cash flow. DuMond finally plans on changing that.

The third-generation Monkey Jungle owner this month opened up her hideaway to customers willing to pay for a private tour and feeding session. The new $89 ``Rainforest Adventure'' marks an evolutionary milestone for the 74-year-old park in southwest Miami-Dade County, which hasn't yet adopted the upselling instincts of its rivals.

Miami Seaquarium charges $139 to wade with its dolphins and $200 to swim with them. Jungle Island, which originally opened as Parrot Jungle in 1936, now offers paid encounters with penguins ($30) and lemurs ($45), plus VIP tours that cost $240 a head. At the Miami Metrozoo, behind-the-cages tours start at $33, and you can pay $145 to work as a zookeeper for a day.

But until two weeks ago, the only way to buy some extra interaction at Monkey Jungle was with a 75-cent box of raisins for feeding the tamarins, macaques, capuchins and other primates that live in the park.

Despite drama and daring in recent years by local rivals, Monkey Jungle has quietly stuck with a business plan that in many ways dates back to the Great Depression.

That was when Joseph DuMond decided to charge tourists 10 cents to see his collection of Java monkeys -- creatures the weekend animal behavioralist bought to form North America's first monkey colony.

Visitors paying $29 to enter Monkey Jungle mostly walk the same 10 acres DuMond purchased, and they feed raisins to Java monkeys descended from the six he released in 1933.

The Javas prowl the caged pathways that weave through the park looming over holes in the top where tin cups dangle from chains. Visitors drop raisins inside, and the Javas yank them skyward for a snack.

``This was a no-brainer for us,'' said Art Puentes, as Emily Puentes and their 13-year-old son, Adriel, watched a Java throw back an empty cup for a refill. ``My wife loves monkeys so much. She's gotten him addicted to monkeys.''

Divided into three tribes, the most dominant Java pack of the moment prowls the pathways by the park's entrance because that's where visitors have full boxes of food. The weakest of the three gets relegated to the end of the trail.

The dominant tribe also stars in the park's signature show -- ``The Wild Monkey Swimming Pool'' -- where Javas munch on fruit staffers toss into a shallow pond by a spectator gallery. Most of the fruit comes from discarded produce DuMond picks up from a nearby Publix on her way to work.

While the primate collection expanded dramatically in the 1960s and '70s under DuMond's father, Frank, Monkey Jungle has steered clear of the kind of reinvention underway at Seaquarium and Jungle Island.

Two years ago, Seaquarium spent $5 million on a 700,000-gallon ``dolphin encounter'' area that recently welcomed its 50,000th visitor and generates roughly 20 cents of every dollar the Virginia Key park takes in. Owner Andrew Hertz expects paid interactions to eventually account for as much money as ticket sales.

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