Mississippi woman fatally shoots monkey escaped from overturned truck | Mississippi

One of the monkeys, which escaped after a truck overturned on a Mississippi highway on Oct. 28, was shot and killed early Sunday by a homeowner who said he feared for the safety of his children.

Jessica Bond Ferguson said her 16-year-old son alerted her early Sunday, saying he thought he saw a monkey running around the yard of their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. He got out of bed, grabbed his firearm and mobile phone and went outside and saw the monkey about 18 meters (60 ft) away.

Bond said he and other residents were warned that the escaped monkeys were potentially diseased, so he fired his gun.

“I did what any mother would do to protect her children,” Bond, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told the Associated Press. “I shot at him, he just stood there, I shot again, he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on social media to mail He said a homeowner found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning, but the office did not have any details. The sheriff’s office said the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks seized the monkey.

The rhesus monkeys were housed at Tulane University’s National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely supplies primates to scientific research organizations, according to the school. In the statement made by Tulane University, it was stated that the monkeys did not belong to the university and were not transferred by the university.

The Jasper sheriff’s office initially said the monkeys carried diseases including herpes, but Tulane said in a statement that the monkeys “were not exposed to any infectious agents.”

The sheriff’s office, which initially reported that all but one of the monkeys had been killed, said three monkeys were released and are being sought.

The Associated Press contributed to this report