Update: All 100 lab monkeys accounted for after several escape crash in Pennsylvania
The following update from ABC
All 100 monkeys have been accounted for a day after a truck crash in the US state of Pennsylvania released several of the lab animals.
The monkeys were being taken to a scientific lab. Locals joined authorities in searching for the escaped primates. Several of the monkeys were later euthanized
The monkeys had escaped following a collision between a truck and a pick-up on Friday local time, Pennsylvania State Police said.
But only one had remained unaccounted for as of Saturday morning, prompting the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other agencies to launch a search for it amid frigid weather.
Residents joined the police in their search for the missing monkeys in nearby forests.
“We just decided to come and try, see if we could find one,” Nate Allen told local news station WKBN27.
“I saw it on Facebook, and actually this started as kind of a family fun joke about just making an experience and going to try and save a monkey, so I actually brought a kennel, flashlights, night vision goggles,” he said.
Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said all 100 of the cynomolgus macaque monkeys had since been accounted for. Read more from ABC
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A truck transporting 100 monkeys collided with a dump truck. Originally four from the 100 monkeys managed to escaped and one who remained missing has been found.
The following written content from Michael Levenson
Jamie Labar was working at the front desk at a Super 8 hotel in Montour County, Pa., on Friday when she heard that there had been a crash on the highway nearby.
“I thought it was just another car accident because there’s always accidents there,” she said.
But it was not just another accident. The Pennsylvania State Police said that a pickup truck with an enclosed trailer full of 100 monkeys had collided with a dump truck and that four of the monkeys had escaped.
The cynomolgus monkeys, which are often used in scientific research and can cost up to $10,000 each, had been on their way to a lab in Florida when the crash happened at about 3:20 p.m. on Route 54 near Interstate 80 in Montour County, about 150 miles northwest of Philadelphia, the State Police said.
No people were hurt, but troopers and state wildlife officials responded as the search for the monkeys intensified into the evening hours. A State Police helicopter was also put on standby but had not been deployed for aerial reconnaissance, Trooper Lauren Lesher, a State Police spokeswoman, said.
As of Saturday morning, only one monkey was unaccounted for, according to state troopers.
“Anyone who sees or locates the monkey is asked not to approach, attempt to catch, or come in contact with the monkey,” they said on Twitter.
Cynomolgus monkeys were in such high demand for coronavirus vaccine research at the beginning of the pandemic that some scientists were talking about the need to create a strategic monkey reserve, an emergency stockpile similar to those maintained by the U.S. government for oil and grain.
With their reddish-brown coats and pink, whiskered faces, the monkeys, also known as crab-eating or long-tailed macaques, are known for using their hands to grab food from burrows and can live up to 30 years in captivity, according to the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.
Ms. Labar said that when her friend told her that monkeys had escaped after the crash, she assumed it was a joke. Then she began to worry, she said, at the thought of the monkeys scampering in traffic and trying to stay warm.
Temperatures in Montour County were expected to plunge to near zero on Friday night.
“I hope somebody gets them out of the cold, whoever it is,” Ms. Labar said. Maybe, she said, that someone could be her. Read more from NYT
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