Three monkeys at large after primates escape from crashed truck in US

A truck that was transporting monkeys overturned on a highway in the US state of Mississippi, allowing the animals to escape, local officials say.

“All but one of the escaped monkeys have been destroyed,” the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department said. But in a later update, it said officials had since been able to “get a correct count” and determined three monkeys were still on the loose.

The monkeys were being housed at Tulane University’s National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, for scientific research purposes.

The sheriff’s department had warned the monkeys were carrying diseases, but Tulane University later said they had not been exposed to “any infectious agent”.

It is unclear exactly how many monkeys were initially on the truck, who owned them, where they were being taken, who was transporting them or why the truck overturned.

Tulane University said the animals “were not being transported by Tulane, not owned by Tulane, and not in Tulane’s custody”.

It added that although Tulane “did not transport or own the nonhuman primates at the time of the incident”, it sent “a team of animal care experts to assist” officials.

Videos shared online showed the monkeys moving through the tall grass on the side of the Mississippi highway. On the highway were wooden crates with the label “live animals”.

The monkeys being transported were Rhesus monkeys, animals that are commonly used for medical study.

In their initial report, officials quoted the driver of truck as saying that that the monkeys were dangerous and needed to be handled with personal protective equipment.

That is what led to the officials to initially say that the monkeys were carrying diseases, though Tulane University later clarified that was not the case.