JASPER CO., Miss. (WLBT) – Those in the small town of Heidelberg are living with the reality that aggressive monkeys are on the loose after a trailer carrying them turned over.
“I thought it was a joke at first,” Kinzie Henry, a Heidelberg native, said. “I was in Michigan when I first heard. I thought everybody was messing with me, but then I looked it up online. It’s kind of surreal. Kind of like a movie or something, you know?”
Tuesday, Jasper County officials arrived near highway mile-marker 117, where they found an overturned truck hauling 21 monkeys to a testing facility in Florida.
As of Tuesday night, officials say three of those monkeys were still missing, five are dead, and the remaining 13 were recaptured.
Tulane University officials sent a team to Heidelberg to assist law enforcement in catching and disposing of the monkeys.
For Henry and April Cooper, when they heard monkeys were on the loose, they were worried for the safety of their pets.
“My first initial reaction is that it was an Outbreak situation, honestly,” Cooper added. “You know, I grew up watching that movie, so it’s a bit scary. We just kept our dogs inside. That’s the main thing: we got animals.”
Many residents who have seen the monkeys firsthand, or who live in town, want the remaining monkeys caught without harming them.
“Yeah, there’s like a heightened concern over it, but hopefully it will work out. You know, there is enough crazy stuff right now. This is probably something we don’t need on top of everything else. Hopefully, they catch them. I heard they had to put quite a few of them down, but hopefully that doesn’t have to happen,” Henry explained.
It was originally reported by the sheriff’s department that these monkeys were carrying infectious diseases, but Tulane University officials cleared that up by releasing a statement saying the monkeys are not infectious.
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