A monkey who escaped an overturned truck is fatally shot by a Mississippi mom
One of the monkeys that escaped after a truck overturned on a Mississippi road last week was shot and killed early Sunday by a homeowner who said he feared for the safety of his children.
Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted Sunday morning by her 16-year-old son, who said he thought he saw a monkey running around in the courtyard outside their home near Heidelberg, Miss. She got up from the bed, picked up her gun and her cellphone and went outside, where she saw the monkey about 18 meters away.
Bond said he and other residents had been warned about diseases being carried by escaped monkeys, so he fired his gun.
“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond, who has five children ranging in age from four to 16, told The Associated Press. “I fired at him and he stood there, and I fired again, and he stepped back and that’s when he fell.”
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning, but said the office had no details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks took custody of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.
Mississippi officials have not disclosed the company involved in transporting the monkeys, where the monkeys were taken or who owns them.
The rhesus monkeys were housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, according to the university, which regularly provides primates to scientific research organizations. Tulane University said in a statement that the monkeys did not belong to the university and were not being transported by the university.
A truck carrying monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Officials have said that most of the 21 monkeys have died. Tulane animal experts examined the trailer and determined that three monkeys had escaped, the Sheriff’s Department said.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which happened about 160 kilometers (160 miles) south of Jackson, the state capital.
Sheriff says monkeys need to be ‘neutralized’
Rhesus monkeys typically weigh around seven kilograms and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the accident showed monkeys crawling among the tall grass along the interstate road, where wooden boxes labeled “live animals” were broken and scattered.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson said Tulane officials reported that the monkeys were not contagious, while initial reports from the people in the truck warned that the monkeys were dangerous and carried a variety of diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still need to be “neutered” due to their aggressive nature.
The monkeys were recently tested, which confirmed they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.
Nearly 10 years earlier, three rhesus macaques at the breeding colony known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity violation,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. It said the breach involved at least one staff member failing to follow biosecurity and infection control procedures.
According to the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service report, the facility made changes to its procedures and retrained staff.
According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, rhesus macaques are “known to be aggressive”. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officers to search for the animals.
The discovery comes nearly a year after 43 rhesus macaques escaped from a facility in South Carolina that breeds them for medical research because an employee did not fully close the enclosure. Workers at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yamasee, SC, had set a net to capture them.
