Monkeys on the loose during a pandemic? It was a little too perfect — too deliciously ironic.
When the news broke about the Friday crash near Danville, it seemed like just the latest in the never-ending series of jokes about the new and different variety of apocalypses on the horizon. The latest incarnation of murder hornets and escaped zebras and other news of the weird.
Come on, lab monkeys break free on a cross-country journey? It was both hilarious and, yes, potentially terrifying in a laughing-at-a-funeral kind of way.
It was almost a disappointment when the three escaped primates were recovered without a chase that resembled footage from a new installment in the “Jumanji” movie series. Yes, there were reports a woman was sick after encountering one of the primates, but Wednesday the news came she was treated out of caution — not because she was ill.
But we don’t need to import monkeys for a zoological mystery. We don’t need to look to strange bugs or escaped critters. There’s more than enough to keep the imagination occupied right in the backyard. Especially if your backyard happens to be in Fairfield.
Christina Eyth found a 37-pound shivering mass of big eyes and mangy fur under her porch Jan. 17.
The temperature was in the 20s. The snow was piling up in a daylong deluge.
It is now in the care of Morgan Barron at Wildlife Works rehabilitation center in Mt. Pleasant Township because no one can quite figure out what it is. Maybe a dog? Maybe a coyote? Without fur, it’s hard to tell.
The important thing is that, as with the monkeys, people still weren’t afraid to help.
Eyth and Barron, like the people who helped search for the missing monkeys in Montour County, saw a need and did what was necessary to solve the problem. Just like the nurses and doctors and first responders and so many, many others who have been doing their best to fill the gaps and provide service during the pandemic.
We have to recognize that what makes our communities work is the people who pull together despite it all, even for a dog that might be a coyote shivering in the snow.
— The Tribune-Review (TNS)
