9.10.2007

shock the monkey...


Capuchin Monkey is Three-Time Zoo Escapee
8/23/2007

Nine-year-old Oliver might just be the greatest escape artist the world has seen since Houdini. And he's not even human.

That's right: Little Oliver is a capuchin monkey who lives at the Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo in Mississippi. Or at least, that's where he spends most of his time, when he's not too busy running away.

Remarkably, the little monkey has managed to escape from his locked cage on three separate occasions, including twice within the past few weeks. When Oliver took off on July 31st, he spent six days in the wild, eating his way through the vegetable garden of a neighboring home.

After Oliver's weeklong vanishing act, Kirk Nemechek, the zoo manager, took precautions to keep the capuchin in captivity, spending $300 on new locks for Oliver's cage. But it didn't take long for the monkey to beat the system – three days after the new locks were installed, Oliver had disappeared from the cage again. Fortunately, this time it only took a day to locate the errant animal, who had already traveled over 4 miles from the zoo.

No one's quite sure how Oliver manages his great escapes, but because capuchins, who are commonly used as helper monkeys for people with disabilities, are often able to mimic human actions that they've observed, Nemechek told The New York Times that Oliver "might have a piece of wire hidden in his cage or something," which he used to open the locks like a key.

Nemechek has since vowed to use only heavy-duty titanium locks on Oliver's cage from now on.

Sure – like that'll stop him

1 comment:

MommaBoo said...

Wasn't that the kind of monkey in "Night at the Museum"?

Oh, well...