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The last of the escaped monkeys from the crash of a truck towing a trailer load of 100 animals accounted for, a day after the pickup collided with a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway.
According to NWI several monkeys had escaped following the collision but only one had remained unaccounted for prompting the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other agencies to launch a search for it amid frigid weather.
The shipment of monkeys was en route to a CDC-approved quarantine facility after arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation. The Atlanta-based CDC said the agency was providing "technical assistance" to state police in Pennsylvania. The location of the quarantine facility and the type of research for which the monkeys were apparently destined weren't clear, but cynomolgus monkeys are often used in medical studies. A 2015 paper posted on the website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information referred to them as the most widely used primate in preclinical toxicology studies.
Crates were littered all over the road Friday as troopers searched for the monkeys. Firefighters used thermal imaging to try to locate the animals, and a helicopter also assisted. Once the accident happened the front panel was torn off of the trailer and sent more than a dozen crates tumbling out. The crates were filled with monkeys.
All 100 monkeys have been accounted for. Three were dead after being euthanized.