Last week, in what seemed straight out of an apocalyptic film, 21 Rhesus monkeys escaped from an overturned transport in Mississippi. The news went viral after initial reports said they had COVID-19, hepatitis C, and herpes, which turned out to be false.
Rhesus monkeys are around 16 pounds and are the most studied nonhuman primate. 13 of the 21 were found at the scene, and 5 were killed, but there were still 3 on the loose before Sunday. One found its way into the wrong backyard, and a mom named Bond Ferguson took matters into her own hands, shooting it.
The incident happened on Sunday morning when her 16-year-old son saw a monkey running in their yard near Heidelberg. Ferguson got out of bed and headed outside, but not before grabbing her gun.
At this point, Ferguson said her neighbors had been warned that the escaped monkeys carried diseases, and she didn't want them to attack her five children or someone else's children.
She shot it twice from about 60 feet away when it "just stood there" after the first bullet. “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” she told The Associated Press.
"If it attacked somebody’s kid, and I could have stopped it, that would be a lot on me,” the 35-year-old told AP. “It’s kind of scary and dangerous that they are running around, and people have kids playing in their yards.”
She told TMZ later, "I wish it didn't have to happen that way. I just wish they took better measures in taking care of it and trying to find them."
The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took the monkeys' remains, the sheriff’s office said, per AP. Another monkey was found on Sunday, so there is still one more on the loose.
Even though the initial reports were wrong and they were actually pathogen-free, the species is "known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, per AP. Conservation workers are working with the Jasper County Sheriff's office, with Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson explaining the monkeys would need to be "neutralized."
The Mississippi Highway Patrol is investigating the crash. In a video, monkeys can be seen crawling through tall grass beside the interstate.
There seems to still be some unanswered questions about whose monkeys they are. They were being housed at Tulane University's National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
While Tulane University has said they were housing the monkeys, they released a statement saying they "were not being transported by Tulane, not owned by Tulane, and not in Tulane's custody." They have not revealed who owned them, and it's unclear where they were headed and why they were traveling through the south.
“When a truck carrying 21 monkeys crashes on a public highway, the community has a right to know who owned those animals, where they were being sent, and what diseases they may have been exposed to and harbored simply by being caught up in the primate experimentation industry,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, senior science adviser on primate experimentation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal, per ABC news.