Escaped Monkey Just Looking for Love—'Don't Shoot,' Begs Owner

An escaped monkey running rampant around the Irish countryside is just looking for love and should not be targeted by hunters, its owner urged.

Willie Heffernan, owner of the Rathdrum Monkey Sanctuary in county Wicklow, where the fugitive escaped from, is urging any hunters not to shoot the monkey named Charlie, the Irish Mirror reported.

Charlie the capuchin monkey "just disappeared" one day when Heffernan was trying to get him away from the female monkeys in the sanctuary, he said in an interview with a local newspaper. The monkey loves females and had been harassing them, meaning they had to be separated.

"Either he has succumbed to the elements, or he's been killed by farm dogs or hit by a car. He would survive in the trees, he is a very capable fellow. It is shooting season down here, and he could be a target," Heffernan told Sunday World. "There is a lot of shooting, ducks, pheasants, so that is a worry because he would be high in a tree. I would appeal to farmers to please check their outbuildings, that is probably where he will go to rest up...If there are no dogs there."

Before coming to the sanctuary, Charlie was rescued from a U.K. lab around 20 years ago. Since then, he has always been with other monkeys and is not used to being alone.

Heffernan's monkey sanctuary focuses on getting monkeys out of cages. They are given an environment "as natural" as possible, according to its website. Some monkeys are used in labs for scientific research and experiments, which many animal welfare groups stand against.

The good news is that the monkey is also intelligent, Heffernan said, meaning he would be smart enough to avoid traps.

"He will avoid people and sleep in barns. He was only two years old when he arrived. Normally they all get spayed, the males, but he slipped the knife," Heffernan told the newspaper. "There's three old monkeys on the island next to him—females in their mid-60s—and he was harassing them. I tried to move him and his partner—I got one off, but when I went to get him, he had jumped ship."

At first, Charlie reappeared when the owner offered him food, but then he just left altogether. Heffernan is concerned the monkey has gone into the neighboring area of Avondale, which is packed with trees. Wild capuchin monkeys live in forests in Central America and South America.

"I live by the National Park—there's a forest from Lara to Arklow so it has plenty of woodland," Heffernan said. "He is excited when he thinks Wicklow is full of young female monkeys. He's lived on the island and caught squirrels, frogs, and birds so he has no bother getting protein."

Correction 01/03/24, 4:43 AM ET : This article was corrected to state that the monkey escaped while he was being moved at the sanctuary instead of after.

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