A PUBLIC APPEAL has been launched after a monkey went missing from a sanctuary in Wicklow.
Charlie, a 22-year-old Capuchin monkey, was a resident of the Monkey Sanctuary in Rathdrum until he made an escape at the start of the Christmas period.
The sanctuary’s director Willie Heffernan has urged anyone who has caught sight of the primate to contact gardaí or the sanctuary itself, but also to be careful of Charlie.
“The missing monkey is only the size of a domestic cat so he’s quite harmless but he’s not a pet so it’s best to treat him as a feral cat,” he told The Journal.
Charlie was rescued from a UK laboratory which was closing down 20 years ago and had been happily living on the Sanctuary in Rathdrum “without any incident”, until his escape.
He has had minimal contact with humans, as the animals are fed via a pulley mechanism delivering food to the island once a day.
“So he won’t make contact with people himself. A lot of farms will have dogs that could kill him and he wouldn’t be used to traffic, so he’s got a lot of things against him,” Heffernan said.
However, he’s considered a good forager and an excellent climber, so it’s possible he’ll find some comforts in Wicklow’s woodland.
“It’s an incredibly heavy wooded area so he’s in heaven at the moment apart from the winter. Our hope is to get him back safe – I’ve got a license to carry a tranquiliser dart so we can subdue him safely with that if anyone sees him.”
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