Monkeys threaten San Juan

By Ray Quintanilla
The Orlando Sentinel

TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico — When hordes of monkeys began invading Puerto Rico's agricultural fields, devastating crops and eluding capture, the major concern was trapping them before they reached urban areas, where they would pose a public health hazard and be nearly impossible to round up.

Fear is turning to outrage. Authorities recently acknowledged a clan of these pesky moneys, escapees from defunct medical-research laboratories along Puerto Rico's southern coast, has turned up just 20 minutes outside metropolitan San Juan — home to 1.5 million residents and a virtually unlimited number of hiding places.

"It would be very bad if these monkeys got to San Juan," said Jose Chalbert, director of Puerto Rico's Department of Natural Resources, an agency that recently proposed capturing the wild monkeys because they carry diseases.
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