Infected, aggressive Rhesus monkey escapes crashed truck in Mississippi

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Infected monkey escapes crash on Mississippi interstate | News | fox13memphis.com

A truck carrying Rhesus monkeys from Tulane University crashed on I-59, just north of Heidelberg at mile marker 117 on Tuesday. The sheriff’s office said that truck was carrying monkeys, about 40 pounds apiece, aggressive toward humans, and infected with hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID.

Several diseased monkeys escaped, while others remained trapped in their cages. The sheriff’s office said that all but one of the infected monkeys were “destroyed.” That last monkey, however, remained on the loose as of 2 p.m. The sheriff’s office said the monkeys require personal protective equipment to handle.

Will this be “28 Minutes Later?” or “Escape from the Truck of the Apes?”

(honestly, a bunch of infected animals setting up a primateocracy isn’t much different from what we have now in the US)

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At least it isn’t Ebola. That they’re admitting to. :eek:

Good news, with only one critter on the loose, it establishing a breeding colony seems very unlikely. One that they’re admitting to, that is. :eek:

Until some brilliant Mississippi yahoo lets his pet rhesus loose to keep the escapee company.

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Well, Deer season fixin’ to open. I bet there’s some strange tall tales that come outta deer camp, this year. :flushed_face:

4

I’ve seen the movie. No breeding colony needed. It only takes one bite, then the human race is doomed.

5

And if Howard Cosell were still living, “Those little monkeys got loose!”

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There’s the Local Bigfoot colony. They’ll accept him, I’m sure.

(You hadda know Bigfoot was coming into this)

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I’m remembering a cryptid called something like “The [wherever] Whyooter”, but wiki got nuthin even close.

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I was thinking Kennedy Jr. might appoint them to leadership posts at CDC. They sound more qualified than the crazy ideologues he’s installed there.

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We can only hope.

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Yeah they could get appointed HHS secretary and it would be a massive improvement in every respect.

Hell one of them might bite POTUS (though in fairness there is only a moderately bigger chance of this happening with an enraged infected resus monkey, than with the current HHS secretary)

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Them brain worms gotta eat too.

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Latest news update:
It was headed towards Monkey town SC

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Something similar happened almost a year ago. Most of them were quickly captured, but several evaded “rescuers” for quite some time.

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I found it. It was a marketing gimmick for Jack Daniels. Figures.

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Sage advice from a rather unlikely source:

[And the song, of course]

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He has a history of being attacked by wildlife.

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There’s also this.

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I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can’t prove anything!

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I assume you’re referring to the Ebola-infected rhesus monkeys in Reston, VA back in 1989. None of them escaped, AFAIK. And, fortunately, the Ebola strain they had wasn’t lethal to humans (although they didn’t know that then. And they thought it might be spreadable by aerosol. Yeesh.)

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Well now, a rather significant update:

Escaped monkeys ‘destroyed’ after Mississippi police are mistakenly told they’re a danger

A number of monkeys were “destroyed” after they got loose Tuesday morning and Mississippi law enforcement officers were mistakenly told they were dangerous.

…

“The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and posed a threat to humans,” it said. “We took the appropriate actions after being given that information from the person transporting the monkeys.”

The department said the monkeys were being hauled from Tulane University. In a post on X, the school said that its National Biological Research Center provides primates to other research organizations to “advance science” and that the monkeys in question were not infectious.

…

The department initially said one of the animals was still missing but in an update clarified that, after officials from Tulane “were able to get inside the truck and get a correct count,” they determined three monkeys remain on the loose.