{"id":348865,"date":"2026-07-22T18:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/348865\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:28:09","slug":"watch-florida-city-issues-warning-after-multiple-monkey-sightings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/348865\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Florida city issues warning after multiple monkey sightings"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 22 (UPI) — A Florida city is reminding residents to keep a safe distance after multiple sightings of wild monkeys in the area.<\/p>\n

A wild rhesus macaque was photographed<\/a> last month outside the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, and another monkey was caught on camera July 15 at Gilbert Park.<\/p>\n

Resident Priscilla Spears said she spotted a monkey near a Mount Dora shopping plaza last week.<\/p>\n

“I was like, ‘Who would have their dog out on a busy road?’ And as I got closer, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a monkey,'” Spears told WESH-TV.<\/a><\/p>\n

The City of Mount Dora posted a warning to residents on social media<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n

“We have received reports of monkey sightings within the city. While seeing a monkey may be unusual, please remember they are wild, feral animals and should be admired from a safe distance,” the post said.<\/p>\n

Mount Dora is located about 12 miles from Silver Springs, where a wild population<\/a> of monkeys has lived ever since being brought to an island that is now part of Silver Springs State Park by a tour boat operator in 1938. The operator was unaware that the rhesus macaques were strong swimmers, and they quickly escaped the island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 22 (UPI) — A Florida city is reminding residents to keep a safe distance after multiple sightings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,21695,30,29,14345,3685,142784,130620,122750],"class_list":["post-348865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-city","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-monkeys","tag-mount-dora","tag-priscilla-spears","tag-rhesus-macaque","tag-safe-distance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}