Three of them were later captured by the police, but the fourth was still at large on Saturday.
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Four monkeys took advantage of a road accident to escape from the truck transporting them to the Florida laboratory (southeastern United States) for which they were destined, Friday January 21. The truck carrying a hundred crab-eating macaques collided with a garbage truck near the small town of Danville in central Pennsylvania (northeast of the country). four monkeys “escaped the scene of the accident and disappeared in the vicinity”, tweeted the local police, who called on the population not to approach the animals.
Three of them were later captured, but the fourth was still at large Saturday morning. “There is still a monkey missing, we ask that no one tries to see or capture the animal”, added the police. According to local channel WNEP, a law enforcement helicopter equipped with thermal cameras helped locate the macaques during searches carried out in the middle of the night, in freezing cold. Pennsylvania police released a photo showing a monkey perched in a tree, dazzled by a flashlight. According to WNEP, police surrounded the animal and then shots were heard. The fate of the recovered animals was not known.
Investigators shared this photo with @WNEP showing one of the monkeys that escaped from a truck after a wreck off of I-80 this afternoon. Troopers and Game Wardens are still trying to catch 4 monkeys, including this one. pic.twitter.com/zsFZdQjawP
— Marshall Keely (@MKeelyNews) January 22, 2022
The price of a crab-eating macaque, also called a long-tailed macaque, can reach $10,000. These very common monkeys in Southeast Asia have been widely used in research on Covid vaccines, according to the New York Times. They can live 30 years in captivity.