Monkey Hunt
Someone's been tearing through Noella Strawder's flower pot and stealing her oranges.
"Something moved them, I don't know what it was," she said.
It's monkey business.
An adult Patas monkey has been tearing through the Northeast Gainesville neighborhood.
Neighbors say he's been popping up for about a week.
"He's pretty big, three feet look like," said one neighbor.
On Thursday, the monkey caught the attention of Gainesville police.
Officers quickly learned what they were dealing with.
The Patas is the greyhound of monkeys, the world's fastest primate.
"What we're looking at is not a real aggressive monkey, but we certainly don't want anybody to try to approach it and get bit," said Karen Parker, spokesperson for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Officials say the monkey may have rabies.
They set a trap in the neighborhood, but where did it come from?
"I''ve got to get with my investigators to see if anybody has reported a missing monkey," said Parker.
The state's last documented Patas monkey escape was three years ago, from a facility 15 miles away in Micanopy.
FWC officers are encouraging neighbors not to approach the monkey so that he will eventually find the trap and enter it.
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