Where Did the Monkeys Near Fort Lauderdale Airport Come From?

[Backseat Driver]

https://www.labroots.com/trending/plants-and-animals/20505/monkeys-near-fort-lauderdale-airport-from

A colony of wild African vervet monkeys calls a thick mangrove forest near Fort Lauderdale's airport home. New research has investigated this colony of monkeys, which apparently settled in the area near Dania Beach, over 70 years ago. This is an urban area, and locals are well aware of these monkeys, but little is known about their history. [snip]



Really did not know there were monkeys living in the wild in Florida. Weird.

[Scrivener7]

1. Does this story make anyone else wonder how Recursion is doing?

"The monkeys have taken over the cabana! Repeat: the moneys have taken over the cabana!"

He hasn't posted since January! I hope he's OK.

[PoliticAverse]

2. I would guess that "wild African vervet monkeys" came from Africa. n/t

[kirkuchiyo]

3. I'd guess pets released intl the wild and they were fruitful and multiplied... nt

[3Hotdogs]

4. I remember when I was a 'ute. Parents took me to Silver Springs Fl -- approx 1955.

Store was selling monkeys. I wanted one but my cheap parents wouldn't get one for me.

W.T.F. ?


Last year, my 46 y.o. daughter was complaining to me that I wouldn't buy her a pony when she was a kid.

What goes around.....

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. Selling monkeys?!

You've done it!

You shared a story from the past that I never knew about, even as a prodigious reader!

[3Hotdogs]

6. Yeah, there were a couple of shops. You could buy a monkey or baby alligator.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. It's one of those things that slipped through the cracks...

... for me about the past, but now you've opened the floodgates.

[3Hotdogs]

9. My first time in Fl. was roughly 1950. My uncle was out of WW 2, waist gunner.

Fucked up in the head from the experience and from being raised by my grandmother. So he moved to a town, Palatka, Fl. population - around 400. He wanted to be away from people and Palatka was a good place to accomplish that..... until Hudson Paper Products opened a plant there, on the banks of the St. John's River. Population increased to around 4,000, "overnight."

We lived in N.J. and going to visit him, well, as memory serves me, 2 1/2 days of driving. The interstate highway was not yet built. For miles and miles, there were signs on the road for a place, "South of the Border." When we finally reached there, it was kind of a disappointment. The next landmark was Shorty's Motel. Kind of a run-down affair on Rt 1. And the third landmark was Brunswick BBQ. Oh, and the Burma Shave signs.

I would recall the separate drinking fountains but we never saw those. Fact is, we didn't see any drinking fountains in any of our stops. But there were separate rest rooms for "colored." A little more of that later.

During one or two of the trips to visit my uncle and his family, my parents stopped by a cotton farm and a tobacco farm to ask the farmer if we could have a couple of bolls of cotton and a tobacco leaf to take back to N.J. for show and tell. I was probably in the third grade.

Segregation, I recall signs in restaurants, "We reserve the right to refuse service...." I don't recall the exact wording. I remember feeling lucky I could go into any restaurant I wanted. Downtown, Palatka, If a white person was on the sidewalk, and the sidewalk across the street had no white people on it, any black people had to walk across the street to the "empty" sidewalk.

But the episode I recall most vividly, I went with my aunt to register my cousin for Kindergarten. While we were inside, a buzzer went off. It was a black woman at a service window outside the building. She had to register her kid from outside of the Board of Ed.
headquarters.

Palatka was also where I had my first taste of hominy grits. l still slow cook grits every Sunday morning. It was also a place of open range. There were a few people who raised cattle and dairy. But they were not fenced in. They were allowed to go where ever they wanted. Uncle said ya can't shoot them if they come on your property but if they damage your property, the farmer had to pay for the damage.

Well, ten years later, a major highway was built. Shorty's motel was remodeled and expanded and "South of the Border" is still in business selling fireworks and whatever.

That's about all the stuff I remember about my trips to f.... well, one more. She was blond, about 15 and gorgeous and making out in the back of her brother's car.... mosquitos be damned.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. Thanks for sharing that story!

I looked up a brief history of US Highway 1 as a result of your post. For such a long highway, from Key West FL to Fort Kent ME, I've never traveled on it.

Stephen King wrote a book about it, using his Richard Bachman pseudonym, in 1979. The plot is a dystopian future with contestants required to continuously walk on US Hwy 1, starting in Maine, with the winner being the only contestant still alive.

I even looked up the landmarks that you mentioned from your trip and found this photo from 1960 of Shorty's Motel, which is apparently long out of business.



Very sad to read about the segregation rules that you witnessed, despite me being long-aware of that sort of thing.

My family stopped at a fast food joint in Tennessee back in the 70's, before drive-thru's were more common, and my Dad stomped out of there without any food. He said the black customer in front of him was told that he couldn't eat inside the place with his family. He could order food, but would need to eat it outside. So Dad decided to not give them his business, and we continued driving for many more miles before finally getting some burgers in Kentucky somewhere.

Your memory is great! I couldn't begin to name most of the businesses from my old family vacations! I can sometimes remember the names of tourist spots, like caverns or whatever we visited for awhile, but that's about it. On the other hand, those landmarks might've been like oases on a mostly desolate road for you, making them easier to stick in your mind.

[3Hotdogs]

11. U.S. 1. Long and desolate. For miles, nothing but farms or forests.

The commercial buildings that were there, were nondescript things that were put together without imagination... just utilitarian buildings to keep the rain out of whatever was going on inside. There are a parts of southern N.J. with secondary highways that have a few such buildings standing. About half are vacant. The rest have succumbed to strip malls or convenience store/gas stations.

U.s. 1 is also known as the Post Road. It was built from Boston to New Orleans and was chartered by Ben Franklin to facilitate the carrying of mail. There were stone markers along the road and the postage fee was calculated by the miles. I recall seeing a few of those markers along the side of the highway, outside of Trenton, N.J,. until the 1980's. They were later removed to widen the highway.

Several parts of the highway are still named Post Road. A Post Road exists in Bronx, N.Y. Others are in New England towns.

The second argument leading to the Civil War was in early 1800's. Congress passed a Bonus Bill that provided for paving the section of the road from Washington D.C. to Boston. No parts of U.S. 1 in southern states was to be paved.

[csziggy]

8. That's the third monkey colony I have heard of in Florida

There are monkeys that were released or escaped from Silver Springs; A possible colony in the Green Swamp north of Lakeland; and now this one.

These wild monkeys thrive in Florida—and carry a deadly virus

Descendants of theme-park escapees, a population of rhesus macaques in a Florida state park may soon double in size—a recipe for trouble.
ByAnnie Roth
Published November 9, 2018
• 10 min read

In the heart of central Florida lies Silver Spring State Park—a large patchwork of forests and wetlands with a spring-fed river flowing through it. One of Florida’s first tourist attractions, the park was once known for its scenic vistas and native wildlife. But for the last 80 years, the park’s biggest draw has been its monkeys.

That’s right—Silver Spring State Park is home to at least 300 rhesus macaques, a monkey native to south and southeast Asia. The animals are breeding rapidly, and a new study estimates that the monkey population will double by 2022 unless state agencies take steps to control it.

The study, published October 26 in the journal Wildlife Management, claims that such an increase could put the health of the park and its visitors in serious jeopardy—because, among other problems, the monkeys carry a rare and deadly form of herpes virus called herpes B. It’s extremely, extremely rare for herpes B to spread from a monkey to a human, but when it does, it can be fatal.

More: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/florida-rhesus-monkeys-herpes-running-wild-invasive-species

JAILBREAK MONKEYS STILL FREE IN GREEN SWAMP
By Craig Pittman
Published Jan. 30, 2009

Three weeks after a group of 15 monkeys made a monkey out of Lowry Park Zoo's chief executive, most of them are still roaming the Green Swamp in Polk County.

"We know where they are," explained Gary Morse of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "It's catching them that's the problem."

The animals are Patas monkeys. When they run, they can hit a top speed of nearly 35 mph.

Turns out they can swim pretty well, too.

More: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2008/05/20/jailbreak-monkeys-still-free-in-green-swamp/

All of those have been caught:

At Last, All of 15 Escaped Monkeys Found, One Dead
By JEREMY MAREADY / THE LEDGER
Posted Dec 18, 2008 at 9:40 PM Updated Dec 18, 2008 at 10:42 PM

The last of the 15 monkeys that escaped from Safari Wild have been accounted for - one dead and four captured. The four Patas monkeys were caught by trappers in North Lakeland, not far from where they escaped.

LAKELAND | The last of the 15 monkeys that escaped from Safari Wild have been accounted for - one dead and four captured.

The four Patas monkeys were caught by trappers in North Lakeland, not far from where they escaped.

The fifth was found shot to death near the Polk County wildlife park.

The 15 monkeys escaped from the park, which is still under construction, in April by swimming a moat they were not thought to be able to cross.

More: https://www.theledger.com/article/LK/20081218/News/608137087/LL

There was a single monkey loose in Tampa:

Tampa Bay's new 'Mystery Monkey: The Sequel' is on the run once again
By Sara DiNatale
Published Nov. 4, 2016

There's a monkey on the loose who has dodged trappers, crossed county lines and appears to have traveled up to 30 miles in just one week.

A rhesus macaque, native to Asia, was spotted last week along the Pasco County coast. It was seen near Aripeka and by Hudson Beach, hanging out Oct. 26 along the residential boat docks, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Then the new Mystery Monkey was spotted the next day across the Pasco-Pinellas county line, in a subdivision in Palm Harbor.

That should sound familiar to Tampa Bay residents. Cornelius the first Mystery Monkey once led wildlife officers on a 4-year hunt.

Cornelius spent years on the lam, building a social media fan base and infuriating trappers again and again before he was finally captured on Oct. 24, 2012 — four years to the week of this most recent sighting. That was also a presidential election year, by the way.

More: https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/wildlife/tampa-bays-new-mystery-monkey-the-sequel-is-on-the-run-once-again/2301333/

Florida's 'Mystery Monkey' Captured After Three Years On The Lam

October 25, 2012 10:46 AM ET
Mark Memmott

The "mystery monkey" who had been on the loose in the Tampa Bay area for more than three years was captured Wednesday, our friends at WUSF report.

As WUSF's Scott Finn writes, the rhesus macaque monkey had become something of a local legend in Tampa and St. Petersburg. He'd also made the national news and had "his own" Facebook page (latest update there: "my freedom has been taken away from me&quot .

The "mystery monkey," now known as Cornelius, while he was on the loose in 2010.
Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay Facebook page

It's thought, as WTSP-TV says, that he "escaped from a small colony of monkeys" that live in Silver Springs, Fla. For much of his time on the lam, the monkey was a popular guy. But as Scott notes, "the lighthearted story became more serious earlier this month, when the mystery monkey bit a woman in her backyard after jumping on her back." Neighbors had reportedly been feeding him.

He was captured, according to WTSP, after "a three-hour stakeout" by wildlife officials near "a wooded area in a south St. Pete neighborhood." When the monkey was spotted, he was shot with a tranquilizer dart.

More: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/10/25/163620501/floridas-mystery-monkey-captured-after-three-years-on-the-lam

[Javaman]

12. The (Really) Wild Monkeys Of South Texas

https://www.tpr.org/environment/2020-10-03/the-really-wild-monkeys-of-south-texas

It seems unlikely, but the harsh environment of South Texas plays host to a large population of Japanese Snow Monkeys. They’ve been housed in a sanctuary near Dilley for many years. But stories continue to circulate about Japanese Snow Monkeys being spotted in the wild. It’s a story that goes back almost 50 years.

The year is 1972, the Vietnam war is dragging on. A South Texas Rancher named Edward Dryden heard about the plight of a troupe of Japanese Snow Monkeys, which had become a nuisance in a small Japanese town. The locals wanted them gone.

Dryden wasn’t an animal rights activist. In fact he planned on reselling some of the primates to U.S. medical researchers. About 150 monkeys were transported to his ranch near Encinal.

And then the story gets complicated.