Lab monkeys found, killed after fleeing US road crash

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Three monkeys have been found and killed after a truck carrying 100 primates to a laboratory crashed, allowing them to escape and triggering a police hunt.

The vehicle turned in front of an oncoming dump truck near Danville, Pennsylvania, on Friday en route to a lab in Florida.

Police said on Twitter Friday that “a small number of monkeys may have fled the crash scene into the surrounding area.”

By Saturday night, police said all 100 monkeys had been accounted for.

(FILES) This file photo taken on May 23, 2020, shows laboratory monkeys with their babies sitting in their cage in the breeding centre for cynomolgus macaques (longtail macaques) at the National Primate Research Center of Thailand at Chulalongkorn University in Saraburi. – The crash in Pennsylvania of a truck transporting 100 monkeys to a laboratory allowed four of them to escape, triggering a search by police who warned the public not to approach the animals. (Photo by Mladen ANTONOV / AFP)

Local news site WNEP reported that the escaped monkeys were euthanized, citing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC told WNEP the monkeys landed Friday in New York and were originally from Mauritius.

It was previously believed that four monkeys were missing after the crash.

WNEP said a police helicopter with thermal cameras was used to track down the cynomolgus monkeys, while officers on the ground used powerful flashlights.

Pennsylvania State Police released an image of one primate perched in a tree off Route 54.

Cynomolgus monkeys — also known as long-tailed macaques — have recently been in demand for research into vaccines against viruses.