{"id":200859,"date":"2025-10-09T19:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200859\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T19:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:25:08","slug":"loose-monkey-lured-with-hot-cup-of-coffee-in-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200859\/","title":{"rendered":"Loose monkey lured with hot cup of coffee in South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Oct. 8 (UPI) — A South Carolina town clerk teamed up with the local mayor — and a hot cup of coffee — to capture a spider monkey spotted running loose through town.<\/p>\n

Casey Hill, town clerk in Eutawville, Orangeburg County, said she was helping out at the Eutawville Crappie Classic and Fall Fest on Saturday when she heard rumors of a monkey running loose through town.\n<\/p>\n

The rumors were backed up<\/a> by photos posted by<\/a> witnesses to social media.<\/p>\n

Hill linked up with Mayor Brandon Weatherford and his wife, Laura, and the trio headed over to the area of the last reported monkey sighting, near The Twirl restaurant.<\/p>\n

“Sure enough, she was hanging on the back of a vehicle by the barbershop,” Hill told The Post and Courier newspaper.<\/a><\/p>\n

The primate, who was dragging her own leash, next headed to First National Bank of South Carolina, with Hill and the Weatherfords following closely.<\/p>\n

“She was hollering,” Hill said. “You could tell she was scared.”<\/p>\n

Hill decided to try an experiment: she placed her cup of hot coffee on the ground, removed the lid and took a step back.\n<\/p>\n

The monkey came over to investigate the steaming beverage, allowing Hill to step on the leash.<\/p>\n

Hill said the monkey was claimed shortly after by a woman who identified the simian as her pet, named Ava.<\/p>\n

Spider monkeys are native to the forests of Central and South America. They are currently legal to own in South Carolina without a permit, but a bill filed in the current state legislative session would require all pet primates in the state to be registered.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 8 (UPI) — A South Carolina town clerk teamed up with the local mayor — and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2837,49,48,18474,32198,66,32199,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-200859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-funny","12":"tag-odd","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-weird","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}