Mississippi woman kills escaped monkey fearing for her children’s safety
one of the monkeys ran away last week After a truck overturned on a Mississippi highway, a woman was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who said she feared for the safety of her 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 cell phone and went outside and saw the monkey about 60 feet away.
Bond Ferguson said he and other residents were warned about diseases carried by escaped monkeys, which is why he fired his gun.
“I did what any mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ages 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 in a social media post that a homeowner found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning, but said the office did not have any details. The sheriff’s office said the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks seized the monkey.
rhesus monkeys It was located at the National Biomedical Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely supplies primates. scientific research organizationsby university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys did not belong to the university and were not transferred by the university.
A truck carrying monkeys overturned on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg on Tuesday. Officials said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The sheriff’s department said animal experts at Tulane examined the trailer and located it. three monkeys escaped.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.
Rhesus monkeys typically weigh around 7.2 kilograms and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass next to the interstate highway, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson said that despite warnings from those inside the truck that the monkeys were dangerous and harbored various diseases, Tulane officials reported that the monkeys were not contagious. However, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” due to their aggressive nature.
Tulane said Wednesday that the monkeys had recently undergone checks that confirmed they were pathogen-free.
Nearly 10 years ago, three Rhesus macaques at the breeding colony of what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity breach,” federal investigators wrote in a 2015 report. It was stated that the violation was due to at least one staff member’s failure to comply with biosecurity and infection control procedures.
The facility then made changes to its procedures and retrained its staff, according to a report from 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. The agency’s conservation staff worked with sheriff’s officials to search for the animals, it said.
The call comes after nearly a year 43 Rhesus macaques escaped From a compound in South Carolina that raises them for medical research because an employee didn’t lock the enclosure completely. Employees Alpha Genesis facility Yemassee had set traps to catch them in South Carolina.
