‘It’s a bit scary’: Residents in small town react to aggressive monkeys on the loose after crash

JASPER COUNTY, Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) - Those in the small town of Heidelberg are dealing with the reality that aggressive monkeys are on the loose after a trailer carrying them overturned.

“I thought it was a joke at first,” Kinzie Henry, a Heidelberg native, said. “I was in Michigan when I first heard. I thought everybody was messing with me, but then I looked it up online. It’s kind of surreal. Kind of like a movie or something, you know?”

Tuesday, Jasper County officials arrived near highway mile-marker 117, where they found an overturned truck hauling 21 monkeys to a testing facility in Florida.

As of Tuesday night, officials say three of those monkeys were still missing, five were dead, with 13 others recaptured.

Tulane University officials sent a team to Heidelberg to assist law enforcement in catching and disposing of the monkeys.

Heidelberg residents Henry and April Cooper said they were first worried about the safety of their pets when hearing about the escaped monkeys.

“My first initial reaction is that it was a ‘Outbreak’ movie situation, honestly,” Cooper added. “You know, I grew up watching that movie, so it’s a bit scary. We just kept our dogs inside. That’s the main thing.”

Many residents who have seen the monkeys firsthand, or who live in town, want the remaining monkeys caught without harming them.

“Yeah, there’s like a heightened concern over it, but hopefully it will work out,” Henry Cooper said. “I heard they had to put quite a few of them down. So hopefully that doesn’t have to happen.”

The sheriff’s department initially reported that the monkeys were carrying infectious diseases, but Tulane University officials later updated the situation, saying the monkeys were not infectious.