bringing experts,
smiles to Danville
By JASON SCHREIBER
Union Leader Correspondent
 Hampstead resident Carol Persson sticks a banana on a tree limb yesterday to lure the errant Danville monkey. Below, Elaine Bernard posts pictures resembling the monkey on a utility pole in Danville. (Jason Schreiber Photos)  |
“It was sitting in a squatting position with his hand on his face,” recalled Pedato, who saw the primate Aug. 28 but didn’t notify police at the time because she just couldn’t believe her eyes.
Then her neighbors began hearing strange noises coming from the thick woods that surround their neighborhood off Beach Plain Road.
Pedato realized she wasn’t nuts when her 12-year-old daughter Christina picked up the newspaper last weekend and showed her a story about a monkey lost in Danville.
“I was very relieved that I wasn’t crazy,” admitted Pedato, who moved to Danville two years ago and added that even before hearing of a monkey in her neighborhood she felt the area was “too country for me.”
An elusive Humbolt’s woolly monkey, an endangered species native to the Amazon jungle, has been swinging through the trees in Danville woods for the past few weeks. No one seems to know who owns the animal or how it was freed.
Searchers have been hanging out in wooded areas where the monkey has been spotted, hoping to catch the exotic animal before it dies in the cooler weather.
Several residents have reported seeing the monkey, including Danville Fire Chief David Kimball. The latest sighting came yesterday morning when Scott Velleca saw the animal briefly behind his home located in an area off Beach Plain Road. Officials believe an apple orchard in the area may be providing food for the monkey.
The phones were ringing off the hook yesterday in Danville Town Hall and police department with residents calling to offer tips that may lead searchers to the monkey. One woman called to report that a tree in her backyard appeared to have been scratched up and she wondered if the monkey was the culprit.
Sheila Lemieux’s 6-year-old son Jacob wondered who’s been eating the cookies in his tree fort. Jacob has been bringing peanut butter cookies out to his fort for the past week and they’ve all mysteriously disappeared, his mother said, adding Jacob found a ribbon tied around a tree and he “thought he was feeding an Indian.”
“He’s been emptying my cookie jar. I just figured it was the other kids in the neighborhood playing a trick on him,” Lemieux said. But now her son wonders if the monkey has been snacking on the cookies. Some toys in the fort also have turned up missing.
Danville Animal Control Officer Denise Laratonda said she wants the owner of the monkey to come forward and offer information that may assist in the search. While monkeys are illegal to own in New Hampshire, Laratonda said she would not press charges against the owner.
Searchers said yesterday they have a better idea of the monkey’s whereabouts in the woods. “I think we’re much, much closer,” said Julia Ashmun, a Danville resident who has trained monkeys and is assisting in the search.
The monkey had been spotted in the Kingston Road and Pleasant Street areas, but searchers don’t believe he’s there now.
An official with the Massachusetts Humane Society who has experience trapping exotic animals is expected to help in the search today by using some sophisticated trapping equipment. He will also bring along feces and urine from a female monkey that may help lure the Danville monkey, which officials suspect is a male. A primate expert plans to assist in the search as well, Laratonda said.
A tranquilizer gun will be used to capture the monkey if it’s found alive. It will eventually be rehabilitated and brought to a secure outdoor environment, possibly in Florida, to live.
Hampstead resident Carol Persson continued hanging bananas and oranges in trees as bait yesterday, but the monkey hadn’t taken a bite by last night. So far some 12 pounds of oranges and three bunches of bananas have been hung from tree limbs, Persson said.
 Lagothrix lagothricha, a common or Humboldt's wooly monkey. (Shelley Grossman Photo) |
This may very well be the first monkey search ever in town.
“We’re accustomed to locating young children lost in the woods or older people, but nothing like this,” Danville Police Chief Wade Parsons said.
While Ashmun said monkeys have the disposition of a golden retriever, she urged people not to touch the animal. Instead, anyone who sees the monkey is asked to call Rockingham County Dispatch at 679-2225.