The final monkey on the loose after a truck overturned on a Mississippi interstate was captured Wednesday afternoon.
A resident who lives near the Interstate 59 crash site called authorities to report spotting the Rhesus monkey.
The monkey was “successfully recovered,” the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Brandy Smith saw the monkey when her dog started barking, she told WDAM-TV. Her neighbors called 911. Workers from one of the companies that had been transporting the truckload of monkeys across the country arrived to tranquilize the monkey, Smith said.
Two other monkeys who evaded capture at the time of the crash were later shot and killed by civilians. A Mississippi woman spotted the monkey and shot it.
“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Jessica Bond Ferguson told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that's when he fell.”
Five monkeys were killed as law officers hunted for them in the immediate aftermath of the crash. Video from officers’ body-worn cameras showed a chaotic scene as monkeys that escaped from their wooden crates dashed around the grassy interstate median, with some running toward cars and semis on the interstate.
Officials had warned residents not to approach the Rhesus monkeys, saying they are known to be aggressive.
The monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university.
Tulane has said it wasn’t transporting the monkeys and they do not belong to the university.
PreLabs, which describes itself on its website as a biomedical research support organization, said in a statement that the animals were being lawfully transported to a licensed research facility. It said the monkeys weren’t carrying any known diseases. Thirteen of the monkeys that were not killed arrived at their original destination last week, according to Tulane.
The escape is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and how contracts demanding confidentiality prevent the public from knowing key facts about studies involving animals.
