the rix mix

Baboon eludes capture
Six Flags Great Adventure staff ends second-day search
JACKSON — A second day of searching for an elusive baboon ended Friday evening, but not before numerous residents and motorists got glimpses of the young creature in yards and on township roads.

The two-foot tall primate, believed to have escaped from Six Flags Great Adventure, was last seen running late Friday afternoon from the Metedeconk National Golf Course into neighboring Freehold Township, where it was spotted on Ely Harmony Road, according to Capt. David Newman of the Jackson police.

So there's a "monkey" running wild in the suburban towns at the fringes of the Jersey Pine Barrens. The SPCA of King Williams Town in South Africa recommends:

• Do not get between it and its escape route. 
• Allow it right of way. Do not challenge it.
• Don’t maintain eye contact.
• Don’t panic or run, slowly back off.

I would not want to encounter a loose baboon. They are not reliably nice animals. They're smart, their personalities & behavior are too complex for all but primate experts to understand. If you saw one by your garbage cans & shouted "Shoo," it might go nuts & attack you. It would have no problem climbing up the side of your house & ripping through  a window screen.

A baboon isn't the only exotic animal you'd see in the Pine Barrens. There are  6' emu birds running around in those woods.

Labels: in the news, nature, New Jersey