Monday, October 29, 2012 Most Wanted Monkey Finally Caged!


At long last, the nation can breather a sigh of relief.  From the CBC:
Mystery monkey caught in Florida after three years on the run

by Lauren O'Neil
Posted: October 26, 2012 10:40 PM


One of America’s most elusive primates is safely behind bars today, after what officials can only speculate was one heck of a years-long adventure.

The “Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay” is a wild rhesus macaque who has been driving animal control officers in Florida bananas for almost four years.

First spotted in January of 2009, the 25-pound male had been popping up in backyards, alleyways, outside of restaurants, and in church parking lots all over the Tampa Bay area

“He came to worship,” said a woman who’d witnessed the monkey on top of a Baptist church during evening service to the Tampa Bay Times. Another woman said she saw it swing off of a tree and into her swimming pool.

Sightings were plentiful, but officials struggled to get their hands on the ape each and every time.

Freelance animal trapper Vernon Yates, who was called in by state wildlife officials to help wrangle the critter, tells the New York Times that he was struck by how “streetwise” this particular monkey seemed to be.

Once, reports the New York Times, an F.W.C. lieutenant scaled a ladder and barked at it the monkey, thinking it was a raccoon. Mystery monkey urinated on him and disappeared.

His elusive nature and generalized cuteness made Mystery Monkey somewhat of a local celebrity in Florida. He once garnered National attention when his Facebook page was mentioned by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report.

But while many Floridians are amused by the creature, even coming to his defense saying he’s “a resident" of the neighbourhood, an incident that occurred earlier this month in which the monkey bit a St. Petersburg woman forced officials to step their game up.

The 60-year-old woman told police she had been sitting on her porch when the monkey jumped onto her back and began scratching and biting her skin.

"It was predictable that he was going to become emboldened,'' said Don Woodman, a Safety Harbor veterinarian who shot the monkey with a tranquilizer gun this week to Tampa Bay Online. "It was predictable that people were going to feed him. We did predict it. It was predictable that he was going to attack somebody."

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Baryl Martin confirmed to local reporters that the monkey was captured Wednesday when trappers spotted him sitting on a low-hanging branch.

The monkey was shot with a tranquilizer dart and quickly apprehended. He is under quarantine in a cage at a veterinarian’s sanctuary, but officials plan to reunite him with others of his kind when the time is right.

Many are celebrating the rogue primate’s capture, but others are crying fowl according to the men who captured it.

Wildlife trapper Vernon Yates and veterinarian Don Woodman told the Tampa Bay Times that they’ve been receiving calls from community members who are concerned for the monkey’s well being.

Woodman said that people have accused them of having a secret plan to kill the monkey.

"I don't know why everybody thinks we're going to euthanize this monkey," Woodman said. "It's just not true."

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