A Mississippi woman shot and killed one of the monkeys that escaped an overturned truck last week because she reportedly feared for the safety of her children.
“I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Jessica Bond Ferguson said The Associated Press. “I shot at it and he just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed away and then he fell.”
Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, reached for her gun on Sunday when her eldest son told her he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi.
When she stepped outside, she saw the monkey about 60 feet away from her. The Mississippi mother said she and other residents were warned about the diseases the escaped monkeys carried, so she fired her gun.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning, but said the office had no details.
The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks seized the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.
It comes days after a truck full of caged Rehsus monkeys crashed Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. It is still not clear what caused the truck to overturn, but officials confirmed that three monkeys had escaped.
The rhesus monkeys were housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which the university says routinely supplies primates to scientific research organizations. In a statement, Tulane University said the monkeys do not belong to the university and that they were not transported by the university.
Despite reports initially suggesting the monkeys were carrying infectious diseases – including hepatitis C, herpes and Covid-19 – Tulane University, where they were housed, denied this was the case.
“The primates…are not contagious. We are actively working with local authorities and will send a team of animal care experts to assist if necessary,” the university said. wrote. Tulane emphasized that The independent that the monkeys “have not been exposed to any infectious agent.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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