{"id":246396,"date":"2025-10-23T15:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246396\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T15:35:09","slug":"its-raining-monkeys-florida-kayaker-records-crazy-video-of-paddling-primates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246396\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s raining monkeys:\u2019 Florida kayaker records crazy video of paddling primates"},"content":{"rendered":"

SILVER SPRINGS, Fla. \u2013 A peaceful kayak trip through Silver Springs<\/a> turned into a wild show when a group of monkeys <\/a>started leaping out of trees and into the water.<\/p>\n

Kayaker Trenda Kitchen says she hoped to spot the monkeys but never expected what she witnessed. Watch her video in the player above.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP FOR Strange Florida NEWSLETTER!<\/a> Get news of the weird, Florida style]<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just totally flipping out, this is crazy fun,\u201d Kitchen said.<\/p>\n

The rhesus macaques are an invasive species that were introduced to Florida by a tour boat operator in the 1930s and have thrived at Silver Springs ever since.<\/p>\n

In 1938, a tour boat operator, Colonel Tooey, released just 6 Rhesus macaque monkeys onto a small island, later converted to Silver Springs Park. His motive was to create a park closely resembling the Tarzan story; therefore, he procured the monkeys from New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what Colonel Tooey didn\u2019t know is that this particular species of monkeys are excellent swimmers \u2013 they escaped the premises within minutes of releasing them. Thus, to replace them, six more monkeys were bought. They, too, escaped like the previous batch. By the early 1980s, these monkeys had already spread across what now is the 5000-acre Silver Springs Park.<\/p>\n

Silver Springs blog: “Why Are There Monkeys At Silver Springs?” (excerpt)<\/p>\n

Learn more at Silver Springs\u2019 website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[MORE MARION MONKEYS: Kayaker shares video of monkeys jumping into river at Silver Springs]<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SILVER SPRINGS, Fla. \u2013 A peaceful kayak trip through Silver Springs turned into a wild show when a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,2808,24236,12841,7221,79,133955,17841,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-246396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-marion-county","11":"tag-monkeys","12":"tag-nature","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-silver-springs","15":"tag-strange-florida","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}