Monkeys being transported on a Mississippi highway escaped captivity after the truck carrying them overturned, according to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
All but one of the escaped monkeys were killed, the Jasper County Sheriff\u2019s Department said in a post on Facebook, warning that the monkeys were \u201caggressive.”<\/p>\n
It is not clear how many monkeys were originally in the truck or how many were killed.<\/p>\n
The truck was carrying Rhesus monkeys, which typically weigh around 7.7 kilograms and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet.<\/p>\n
They were being housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Centre in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organisations, according to the university.<\/p>\n
It is not clear who was transporting the monkeys or where they were going.<\/p>\n
Video shows monkeys crawling through the tall grass on the side of Interstate 59 just north of Heidelberg, Mississippi, with wooden crates labeled \u201clive animals\u201d crumpled and strewn about.<\/p>\n
The sheriff’s department initially said the monkeys were carrying diseases including hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID, but Tulane University said in a statement that the monkeys \u201care not infectious.” Law enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.<\/p>\n
Tulane University said it is working with local law enforcement. Mississippi Wildlife and Fisheries is also on site.<\/p>\n
The crash happened approximately 160km from the state capital of Jackson. It is not clear what caused the truck to overturn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monkeys being transported on a Mississippi highway escaped captivity after the truck carrying them overturned, according to law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-247971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}