Photo: Jasper County Sheriff’s Department, Mississippi/Facebook
There’s no easy way to say this, but there are some escaped research monkeys running around Mississippi right now. It’s probably not a problem, but maybe it’s something you want to be aware of. The monkeys escaped after a truck tipped over on the highway earlier this week, and some of their brethren were euthanized under the false belief that they were carrying a host of infectious diseases. Hoo boy! Here’s what we know about the situation.
On Tuesday, a truck transporting 21 rhesus monkeys overturned on a Mississippi highway in Jasper County. A few of the monkeys, which were being transported from a research center connected to Tulane University, escaped from the truck about 85 miles southeast of Jackson. Speaking with the New York Times, sheriff Randy Johnson said that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, leading to the crash.
Shortly after the accident, the sheriff’s department shared on Facebook that “several monkeys are on the loose” and that they “pose potential health threats and are aggressive.” In a follow-up post, the sheriff’s department said the monkeys “carry hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID” — which later proved to be incorrect.
Contrary to what police initially shared, these were apparently perfectly healthy monkeys. A few hours after the department’s first post labeled them “potential health threats,” the sheriff’s department warned that the monkeys were carrying diseases. In a post that has since been edited several times, it said, “Tulane University has been notified and will send a team to pick up the monkeys tomorrow. They advised if the monkeys leave the wreck site they need to be shot.” That last sentence was later removed from the post.
In another edit to the post less than two hours later, the sheriff’s office said that “all but one” of the escaped monkeys had been “destroyed.” It later edited the post once again, now saying that there were actually three monkeys “still on the loose.” It did not remove the part about the monkeys carrying disease.
That evening, Tulane issued a statement saying that the monkeys are “provided to other research orgs to advance science” and that the “primates in question belong to another entity & aren’t infectious.” In yet another post, the sheriff’s office shared that statement to Facebook and explained that it had only acted based on information received from the guy driving the truck.
“The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans,” it wrote. “We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys. He also stated that you had [to] wear PPE equipment to handle the monkeys.”
Okay, so it seems like someone really messed up here. Would the sheriff’s department care to apologize for euthanizing five noninfectious monkeys? Not really. “I hate it got to the point that it did,” Johnson told the Times. “We were told they were highly infectious, dangerous to the public. We reacted on the information that we were given at the time.” All right.
Not all of the monkeys escaped, and the majority of them apparently remained caged in the truck after the accident. Eight monkeys ran free and five were euthanized, so there are three still unaccounted for.
I like to think that someone’s grandma is going to make them a big plate of chicken and dumplings and send them on their way. Realistically, they are going to be captured and returned to Tulane or the mystery entity.
Johnson reassured the Times that there are “no intentions” of euthanizing the three stragglers. Specialists from Tulane have been called in, and they plan to lure in the monkeys using traps with food. In the meantime, Mississippians should stay alert. If you see a weird-looking guy in a trench coat on the side of the road, it’s highly likely that he’s actually three monkeys trying to avoid getting sent back to the lab.
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