Taipei Zoo is searching for a Patas monkey that escaped from its enclosure on Monday, and authorities are urging people to keep a safe distance and call the zoo if they encounter the animal.
The eight-year-old male monkey, named Nan Dao (男道), escaped at about 11am as a zookeeper was cleaning its enclosure, the zoo said in a statement on Tuesday.
The zookeeper was trying to restrain a younger male monkey, which had wandered into a corridor, when Nan Dao opened the unlocked cage door and disappeared into the nearby forest, the zoo said.
Photo provided by Taipei Zoo
Although Nan Dao is cautious by nature, people who see it should avoid approaching the monkey and should immediately alert the zoo, the statement said.
To catch the 85cm-tall animal, the zoo installed traps and infrared cameras around the monkey enclosure and has sent search teams into the nearby mountains, it said.
According to the zoo’s Web site, Patas monkeys are indigenous to semi-arid areas on the southern edge of the Sahara. They have reddish backs, white undersides and mostly gray faces, while the males have distinctive white mustaches.
The incident on Monday marked the third time in the past few months that an animal has escaped from Taipei Zoo. In September last year, an anteater scaled the fence around its enclosure and disappeared for almost three months. It was found in December by a hiker in New Taipei’s Shenkeng District (深坑), about 3km from the zoo.
An endangered leopard cat that disappeared from the zoo in November last year was caught in a trap near the otter exhibit after 17 days on the loose.
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