Dallas Zoo mystery deepens as two missing monkeys found in closet at abandoned home | US News
Two monkeys taken from the Dallas Zoo were found in the closet of an abandoned house a day after they disappeared from their enclosure.
Dallas police said they found the emperor tamarins after receiving information that they may be at the Lancaster home, located south of the zoo.
The zoo alerted police on Monday morning that a couple of white-bearded ones were missing and that it was “clear” that the habitat had been “deliberately disturbed”.
No arrests have been made, adding to the mystery at the zoo, including other cut fences, a small leopard escaping, and the suspicious death of an endangered vulture.
Police said the monkeys are believed to have been taken away after someone cut a hole in their enclosure. The monkeys were found in a closet and returned to the zoo for a veterinary examination.
Detectives are still working to determine if the incidents over the past few weeks are related.
On Tuesday, police released a photo and video of a man they said they wanted to talk to about monkeys. In the photo, a man eats Doritos on the go, and in the video he is walking along the path.
This is the second time in a month that an animal has gone missing from the zoo.
On Jan. 13, the zoo was closed after workers arrived in the morning to find Nova, a clouded leopard, missing.
After a police search the leopard was found a day later near its habitat. The police said that a cutting tool was deliberately used to make a hole in her enclosure.
Nova rests in a tree at the Dallas Zoo.
Just over a week later, on January 21st, workers found a critically endangered vulture named Ping dead.
Gregg Hudson, the zoo’s president and chief executive, called the death “very suspicious” and said the 35-year-old vulture had a “wound”. but declined to give details.
Mr Hudson said at a press conference after Pin’s death that the vulture enclosure did not appear to have been tampered with. Ping was one of four vultures in the zoo.
In 2004, a 154-pound gorilla named Jabari jumped over a wall at the Dallas Zoo and went on a 40-minute rampage, injuring three people before police shot the animal.
