More Monkeys On The March

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard continue our pioneering chronicling of the animal uprising by bringing you all the latest developments. We have warned in the past of the murderous marauding monkeys, now comes word of a simian jailbreak in Virginia.

The 20-pound Japanese macaque and her family were being moved from their holding cells to the exhibit for routine feeding and cleaning when she got away Sunday morning, said David Jobe, education curator at Mill Mountain Zoo. She was still on the run Monday morning.

"We hope that because they're active in the daytime, she slept last night and woke up this morning hungry," Jobe said. "We hope to take advantage of a hungry monkey."

At 11, Oops is the youngest of four so-called snow monkeys at the zoo. The furry, light brown monkey with the red face got her name because the others were not supposed to reproduce.

Jobe said he believes she is staying in the forest so she can be in earshot of her family. It's her first trip out of the zoo, and while the staff hadn't seen her since Sunday morning, they heard her throughout the day Sunday as they searched in the forest that surrounds the zoo, he said.

"Part of our concern for her is that it's the first time she's ever been anywhere else and we're sure she's frightened," Jobe said.

The four-acre zoo, which sits on a mountain inside a Roanoke city park, had never had an escape from its grounds in its 55 years until Sunday, Jobe said. At some point while the monkeys were being shifted, either a zoo employee made a mistake or a piece of equipment malfunctioned, Jobe said.

We suspect that one of the employees took a bribe to look the other way. Just look for an employee who's suddenly flush with bananas. You can bet the monkey isn't scared, though. She's out there setting traps for the searchers.