Monkeys Missing From Dallas Zoo In Fourth Suspicious Incident

[ramonmercado]

Who is attacking Dallas Zoo?

Monkeys missing from Dallas Zoo in fourth suspicious incident​

IMAGE SOURCE,STEVE CLANCY
By Imogen James
BBC News

Two monkeys have allegedly been taken from Dallas Zoo - adding to a series of suspicious events including the release of a leopard and a vulture's death.

Police were alerted on Monday when keepers found the emperor tamarin monkeys missing. Zoo staff believe they were taken because this breed would typically stay close to home - and the monkeys were not located in zoo grounds. The zoo also said the enclosure had been "intentionally compromised".

Police said they believed someone had cut an opening in the habitat and taken the two primates.

A string of suspicious incidents began at the zoo earlier this month when a young clouded leopard escaped from its exhibit through a cut-out hole. It was later found safely.

Workers also found deliberate cuts on an enclosure housing langur monkeys - though none got out.

Last week, an endangered vulture was found dead in its enclosure with an "unusual wound". The bird was one of only 6,500 on the planet and its death was deemed "very suspicious".

Zoo staff said losing the 35-year-old lappet-faced vulture called Pin was devastating, adding he would be "missed dearly by everyone".

No arrests have been made in any of the investigations, and Dallas police have refused to say if the incidents are linked. ...

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64465580

 

[ramonmercado]

Monkeys back at zoo.

Two missing emperor tamarin monkeys turned up alive and well Tuesday, officials said, a day after disappearing from the Dallas Zoo in the latest of a string of bizarre incidents at the attraction.

Dallas police had said the two animals, reported missing Monday, may have been intentionally taken out of the zoo and issued a photo of a man in a hoodie who may be linked to the monkeys' disappearance.

But all ended well, and on Tuesday evening, Dallas police tweeted that they had located the two monkeys in an abandoned home in the town of Lancaster, some 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of the zoo.

The police department posted a photo of a tamarin monkey with trademark white whiskers sitting on what looks like a portable fence leaning against a wall.

"Pictured is one of the animals still inside the closet of the house," the Dallas police department said of the photo. "The monkeys have been returned to the zoo." ...

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-dallas-zoo-monkeys-police.html

 

[IbisNibs]

What an ordeal for the poor creatures! I imagine they could have starved.

 

[His Extremely DeLux Self]

I just now discovered this item and I'm sad and angry. It's a good thing it's several weeks old or I might be tempted to invade Dallas and play vigilante zoo avenger.

What pisses me off the most are the murder of the vulture, and the tampering with the monkey and clouded leopard enclosures. The vandal had to be aware that a leopard set loose in Texas would be a doomed animal. So many guns, so much vehicular traffic--to say nothing of the nothing the creature would have to eat outside a zoo.

In a twisted way, I can sort of understand someone wanting to kidnap a pair of cute mini monkeys and keep them as pets (I still have a hankering for a pet Capuchin that started when I wasn't much bigger than one myself), but actually taking them from the zoo and then leaving them in a vacant house like that was either malicious in intent or else irresponsible beyond belief; the poor little things must have been so hungry and scared that it doesn't bear thinking of.

This whole story is so utterly Texas. Sometimes I wish that whole state would secede from the USA like they keep threatening or promising to.