Monkey break

Press, 22 December 1987, Page 3

Monkey break

Nelson reporter The Mayor of Nelson, Mr Peter Malone, a retired veterinarian, was part of a posse on the trial of a capuchin monkey, called Cheeky, which escaped from Nelson’s Natureland Zoo on Sunday evening. Cheeky was lured by the Oriental odours of the Wok Chinese takeaway in Muritai Street where he is rumoured to have spent his night out on the town. The next stop for the peripatetic primate was

the Muritai Motors service station where he was cornered yesterday morning by a garage worker, Mr Tom Pierce, and shut securely in the workshop while Natureland staff were alerted. However, when his handlers arrived, Cheeky scaled the walls and skulked in the rafters. The Mayor, a keen supporter of Natureland, was summoned for professional advice on how to coax Cheeky down from his lofty perch. “They called me to see if a dart gun could be

used to tranquillise the monkey,” Mr Malone said last evening. “But there was no way he could have been tranquillised because he was between the roof and the rafters in an 18in gap.” Cheeky eventually dropped from a lamp-post into the arms of the Natureland caretaker, Mr Alistair Murdoch.

The miscreant monkey ws checked over by a Stoke veterinarian and given an antibiotic cover injection to negate the effects of stress caused by his eventful outing.