January 22nd, 2021 in Mineral Wells things got a little wild! The Mineral Wells Animal Control received a call this morning from a new resident in town, one of his monkeys had gotten loose and he didn’t know where it was. The sergeant quickly called the local daycare, All About Kids, and let them know to not let the kids outside because a monkey was loose. Teresa Sumrall, Mineral Wells Animal Control Officer, hadn’t even clocked in for the day when a friend gave her a call that there was a monkey on the streets! She skipped running to the office and went straight to the scene. She found it near a house and tried to talk to it so she could capture it but the monkey slapped her hand and ran for the woods. It had gotten away.
Shortly after, April Silva, a staff member at All About Kids, noticed cars were starting to slow down and she thought there was a wreck but sure enough there was a monkey in the middle of the road attacking cars in front of the daycare. Staff members called the local animal shelter, Teresa started heading that way. April surprisingly went outside and started calling it towards her and the monkey started running in her direction. At that moment she didn’t know exactly what to do, the monkey wasn’t very friendly but luckily she had some bananas with her that she threw at it and that seemed to keep it from charging her.
When Teresa arrived the monkey recognized her and charged right at her. at that point, she called Mineral Wells PD for backup. As it’s not common to run into monkeys in Mineral Wells, and no one was really sure how to catch one. Thankfully the owner showed up shortly after and they let the owner get a hold of it. No one was hurt and the monkey is safe at its home. Many people thought it was a baboon but it was actually just a Japanese macaque.
We have yet to hear the owner’s story at this time, but we plan, if he is willing, to hear from him soon.
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