Baboon Jailbreak | God's World News

Baboon Jailbreak

04/18/2018
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    (Photo: Primates like this baboon are highly intelligent animals.)

Teamwork is alive and well at a medical research center in San Antonio, Texas. A troop of baboons is back in an enclosure after they briefly escaped from the center over the weekend—by using teamwork.

Officials at the Southwest National Primate Research Center, part of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, describe the incident as an “animal perimeter breach.” They say a four-baboon gang worked together to prop a barrel up near a wall, climb up on it, and fly their open-air coop.

The center says the immediate concern was for the safety of the animals, center personnel, and residents in the surrounding area. The center has about 2,900 nonhuman primates—1,100 of them baboons. The animals are used in research on chronic and infectious diseases.

Video footage after the escape appeared on social media and news outlets. In the videos, a baboon runs along a road surrounding the research center. Chasing the animal are two research center workers, frantically clapping their hands and shouting.

Three of the baboons were captured within about 30 minutes after they managed to get out of their enclosure and beyond a perimeter fence. A fourth animal apparently started to join his buddies but changed his mind before leaving the enclosure.

Workers put large 55-gallon barrels in the primates’ enclosure for play purposes. After this weekend’s jailbreak, the institute removed the barrels and reports they are rethinking the size of the containers.

John C. Bernal, an official at the primate research center, says that once one baboon jumped over the wall, it was a simple case of “monkey see, monkey do, and the others follow.”

(Photo: Primates like this baboon are highly intelligent animals.)