Community Chat

[MorningLover]

A truck carrying about 100 monkeys was involved in a crash Friday in northeastern Pennsylvania, state police said as authorities searched for at least three of the monkeys that appeared to have escaped the vehicle.

The truck carrying the animals crashed with a dump truck about 4 p.m. on Route 54 near the Danville exit of Interstate 80 in Montour County, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Andrea Pelachick told the Daily Item.

The truck had been on its way to a lab, Pelachick said.  

Authorities asked residents who might see the monkeys to call state police.

In an update Saturday morning, state police said one of the monkeys remained unaccounted for, but the public was asked not to attempt to look for or capture the animal.

Crates holding live monkeys are collected next to the trailer they were being transported in along state Route 54 at the intersection with Interstate 80 near Danville, Pa., Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after a pickup pulling the trailer carrying the monkeys was hit by a dump truck. They were transporting 100 monkeys and several were on the loose at the time of the photo. Jimmy May/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP

[nada54]

I wonder where they were taking the monkey's?

[godi]

I would die if I saw this monkey! Poor thing so cold out. 

[Kachina624]

Reminds me of the time in Houston when I happened on a wreck on a freeway involving a semi carrying a load of chickens.  There were loose chickens everywhere you looked and a bunch of kids from a nearby housing project chasing them while the cops chased the kids.  What a scene!

[BlueFinch]

Caged and on their way to a lab, probably all of them would have liked to escape. Makes me sad for them.

[Shopchickie3]

---

@BlueFinch wrote:

Caged and on their way to a lab, probably all of them would have liked to escape. Makes me sad for them.

Sad, definitely sad. For experiments obviously. 

---

[MorningLover]

This from WRAL news..

The cynomolgus monkeys, which are often used in scientific research and can cost up to $10,000 each, had been on their way to a lab in Florida when the crash happened about 3:20 p.m. on Route 54 near Interstate 80 in Montour County, about 150 miles northwest of Philadelphia, state police said.

Cynomolgus monkeys were in such high demand for coronavirus vaccine research at the beginning of the pandemic that some scientists were talking about the need to create a strategic monkey reserve, an emergency stockpile similar to those maintained by the U.S. government for oil and grain.

With their reddish-brown coats and pink, whiskered faces, the monkeys, also known as crab-eating or long-tailed macaques, are known for using their hands to grab food from burrows and can live up to 30 years in captivity, according to the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

[SilleeMee]

It's extremely sad that animals are still being used for testing. Years ago I worked as a lab researcher in a baboon research facility and I saw first-hand what some of the animals had gone through. It wasn't cruel or inhumane but I found it to be too much for me to continue working there so I quit.

[wakefield64]

If this does not sound like a 2022 news story, nothing does..

[Kalli]

I read they found 3 but the article didn't say whether they were alive or what condition they were in.  It was extremely cold, in the single digits last night.