Mystery Monkey

19mei2010
Source: msnbc.msn.com, photo Renee Barth
A rhesus monkey in Florida has its own Facebook and Twitter page. The local media regularly report on this monkey and in newspapers his story is compared to the film 'The Fugitive'. The only thing missing is the one-armed bandit.
The rhesus monkey appeared over a year ago in the urban areas of Tampa Bay (Florida) and refuses to get caught. The monkey may have escaped from an unlicensed pet owner, or it has escaped from a reserve about 120 miles north of Tampa. There a group of rhesus monkeys lives that were once imported to Florida for a Tarzan movie.
The monkey is quite self-reliant. It is careful in crossing the streets (it looks both ways) and keeps away from power cables. Rhesus monkeys are omnivores and live on fruit, vegetables, insects and small animals. In the fertile land of Florida it therefore has everything it needs. A professional animal trapper has had the monkey in the sights of his tranquilizer gun several times, but the monkey outran him every time. It had been hit once, but then the monkey hid himself well until it had slept off the drugs. All this not before it had thrown faeces at the trapper..
On Facebook and on several blogs the Mystery Monkey has now gathered a large group of fans. In the past few weeks its group of Facebook fans reached 56,000. They hope that the monkey remains free, roaming the streets of Tampa Bay. The trapper hopes to catch it and to return it to a safe place. The trapper does not wish that an untrained individual tries to catch the monkey, because these animals are much stronger and smarter than people think.