Posted on 09/10/2001 1:56:58 AM PDT by 2Trievers
Monkey seen, but won't do well in N.H.
by Franci Richardson
Monday, September 10, 2001
DANVILLE, N.H. - After a hectic day, Kerry Pedato thought she was ready for the funny farm when she saw a large brown monkey perched atop a pump house inside her trailer park.
``I really thought I was going crazy,'' the 32-year-old mother of three said yesterday outside her southern New Hampshire home. ``With the cat in surgery and the kids, I thought I'm really delirious. I must be seeing things.''
But local authorities say Pedato isn't crazy and probably saw a Humbolt's woolly monkey - typically standing about 4 feet tall, with a 1- or 2-foot tail - while she and her daughter were out for a nightly constitutional Tuesday.
Pedato said she waited two or three more seconds before she could muster the courage to ask 12-year-old Christina whether she saw the monkey too.
``I thought she was a little too tired and shouldn't have been outside walking around,'' said Christina Pedato, who didn't see the creature, of her mother's report.
But since that night, there have been eight reported sightings of the monkey, native to the Amazon, who has a dark brown fur coat highlighted by an auburn hue.
Fire Chief David Kimball was the second to report seeing the animal. He spotted it as he drove along Kingston Road a week ago Friday afternoon. He said he was surprised to see the primate swing from a tree into the middle of the street before bounding into another tree.
``When I saw him, he left for parts unknown,'' Kimball said yesterday. ``This thing was so skittish, himself.''
Local authorities here have launched an intensive search for the animal for fear that either the drop in the nighttime temperature or wild animals, like fisher cats, which are plentiful in the area, will kill him.
``If we don't get him, and get him soon, he will die,'' said Denise Laratondo, the animal control officer.
Based on the sightings, Laratondo and four other women combed a 3-mile swamp area yesterday, hanging half-cut oranges and bananas from trees, in an attempt to lure the missing monkey into a trap.
``His lungs are thin, he's not eating well, and he could get pneumonia and die,' Laratondo said.
The monkey, who authorities are judging to be between 2 and 3 years old from the reports of his size, was probably bought in the black market for about $1,000 and imported from the Amazon by a local resident, Laratondo said.
And while they are illegal to raise in New Hampshire, Laratondo is providing assurance to the owner that he won't be charged or fined if he can provide information that she believes may save the monkey's life.
``I am pleading with the owner to please come forward for the (monkey's) safety,'' she said. ``He can come out here, recognize the voice and at least tell me where he let it go.''
Jennifer Valleca, a trailer park resident who has lived here for a year, never saw the monkey, but believes its ``whooping sound'' woke her from a sound sleep on at least one occasion.
``It sounded like it was in my back yard,'' she said. ``The sound went in a pattern of three or four whoops, stopped and then started again.''
After Pedato and Kimball's sightings, both found themselves questioning whether to say anything to others.
``I didn't tell (my husband) because I thought he'd think I was nuts,'' Pedato said.
And judging from Kimball's wife's reaction, Pedato made a good choice.
``I didn't believe him. I thought he had flipped his lid,'' said Barbara Kimball.
Yet.
How's this for a scenario? (Maybe I could get a job at the World Chronicle...)
The monkey is a plant by some members of the the 1% club of the Hell's Angels club that uses monkeys in bizarre satanic sexual rituals.
The idea is to draw the fading spotlight from Gray Condit and California's season of disasters clear across the continent to the New Hampshire, who so far has avoided any shark attacks.
Gotta go but just think of all the other story angles to work in: killer dogs, killer immigrant, killer mall cop, earthquake, lunatics running the state government, buying unneeded power high, selling it low, a US Senator's former son-in-law in a trailer park love triangle... And all this is factual.
We have to make anything up to add to the high drama. Where is the creator of "Soap", or the author of "By the Skin of Our Teeth"?
By the way, does anyone else get the impression that the animal control officer sounds like a PETA person?
Now N.H. cops and others have the 'by' to travel into and through every nook and cranny in your back yard because 'We got an annonymous tip that the monkey was seen in this area'.
N.H. citizens should petition for the continued freedom for the monkey.
Live Free or Die!
Oooooh! What's a fisher cat? Can I have one?
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