One of those monkeys He escaped last week After a truck overturned on a Mississippi road, she was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for her children’s safety.
Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son, who said he thought he saw a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out of bed, grabbed her firearm and cellphone, and went outside, where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.
Bond said she and other residents were warned about diseases carried by the escaped monkeys, so she fired her gun.
“She did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond, who has five children ages 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot him and he stood there, and then I shot again, and he backed away 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 in his home Sunday morning, but said the office did not have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks captured the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.
the Rhesus monkeys He is housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates for animals. Scientific research organizationsaccording to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university and were not transferred by the university.
A truck carrying monkeys overturned Tuesday on Highway 59 north of Heidelberg. Authorities said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The Sheriff’s Department said animal experts from Tulane examined the trailer and determined it was the case Three monkeys have escaped.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol said it was investigating the cause of the accident, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.
Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds (7.2 kg) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. A video recorded after the accident showed monkeys crawling through the tall grass next to the highway, where wooden boxes labeled “Live Animals” were strewn and scattered.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson said Tulane officials were told the monkeys were not contagious, despite initial reports from truck occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harbored various diseases. However, Johnson said the monkeys still need to be “neutered” due to their aggressive nature.
Tulin said in a statement on Wednesday that the monkeys had recently undergone tests confirming that they were free of pathogens.
About 10 years ago, three rhesus macaques at a breeding colony at what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity violation,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. The violation included the failure of at least one employee to adhere to biosafety and infection control procedures, she said.
The facility made changes in its procedures and retrained staff after this happened, according to a report by the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Rhesus macaques are “known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. She added that the agency’s conservation workers were working with police officials in searching for the animals.
The research comes after about a year 43 rhesus macaques escaped from the South Carolina complex that raises them for medical research because an employee did not fully seal the enclosure. Employees from Alpha Genesis facility In Yemassee, South Carolina, they set traps to catch them.