South Carolina authorities are searching not for a fugitive prisoner or a stolen vehicle, but rather for a resident’s wayward primate.
The search for the errant animal stretched on for a second day Saturday. The Colleton County Sheriff’s Office advised residents in a Facebook post on Friday that a primate is loose somewhere in the Walterboro area, 48 miles west of Charleston.
Authorities didn’t specify what kind of primate, though in a post on X, the sheriff’s office labeled the missing animal as a “primate/ape.”
According to the sheriff’s office, the animal’s owner “is attempting to capture it and has called in assistance.”
An image taken by Walterboro resident Tiffany Edenfield seems to show the primate standing in the grass. It has a red face, similar to some species of baboon and macaque monkeys.
One Walterboro resident, Kordell Brabham, didn’t believe his grandmother at first when she said she had spotted a “monkey” in the yard.
Brabham said he told her, “Nana, I think you need to go inside, it may be a little too hot out here for you.”
But soon after, he spotted the animal his grandmother was talking about.
In a video shared with CNN, the escapee can be seen walking on top of a shed. Brabham was shocked and said the first thought running through his mind was, “don’t get too close, that’s a monkey.”
Brabham said the animal eventually climbed down from the shed and went into a nearby yard.
Residents in the area are advised not to approach the primate, which the sheriff’s office said “could be stressed,” and only to report sightings.
“Please monitor your pets while they are outside as a precaution,” the sheriff’s office added.
The sheriff’s office received a report of the primate “attempting to attack a resident’s dog in a yard,” according to South Carolina news station WLTX.
It’s unclear how the animal got loose or came to live in Walterboro, a city of over 5,000 people.
South Carolina law says that it’s illegal to purchase or possess great apes – chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. But it is legal to keep other wild animals as pets, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Smaller primates like monkeys and baboons seem to fall outside the state’s law on possessing wildlife.
