Several people in Volusia County have reported sightings of unexpected holiday visitors over the last few weeks: Monkeys.
Orange City Police said in a Facebook post that the department has “received multiple reports of monkey sightings within the city.”
Having wild animals on the loose isn’t just a Volusia County thing. In Palm Beach County, we’ve had our share of wild animals roaming the area.
Here are some of them:
600-pound tiger owned by a former Tarzan actor terrorizes Loxahatchee
In the summer of 2004, a 600-pound tiger escaped from a five-acre Loxahatchee compound and briefly caused terror … and a media frenzy.
The Bengal-Siberian tiger, named Bobo, was owned by Steve Sipek, a Croatian-born former actor who played Tarzan.
Unfortunately, Bobo was shot and killed by a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer about a day after he escaped. The officer said he feared for his life.
The FWC was bombarded with hundreds of angry e-mails, even death threats from people wondering why they shot the beast. It got so bad that unarmed wildlife biologists were told not to wear uniforms for fear of being attacked. Sipek called them murderers.
The night Bobo was killed, dozens of people — men, women and children — gathered at Sipek’s front gate to mourn. They hoisted signs, planted wooden crosses, carried painted portraits of Bobo, wrote condolence letters and filled his computer with so many e-mails that his hard drive crashed twice.
Also that night, Sipek, with his hands and shirt covered in Bobo’s blood, said the authorities murdered his cat. ‘I’m the living proof of how much they love animals — the blood of my Bobo is all over me.’
Sipek died in a North Florida hospital in 2019.
Storm the kangaroo escapes and hops around Jupiter Farms
In 2019, a kangaroo escaped from his Jupiter Farms enclosure.
Jupiter Farms residents spotted Storm, the 5-year-old kangaroo, one morning hopping down a road before he led his owner, friends and state wildlife officers on a two-day hunt. He was captured in the wee hours of day three.
The kangaroo was not injured.
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After Storm’s return home, wildlife officials temporarily removed the kangaroo and six others living at Eric Westergard’s home in order to inspect the facilities that also housed tortoises, bats, lemurs, a variety of bird species, a capybara and a deer. Westergard quickly constructed a new enclosure for his kangaroos that met state standards.
Yet after the seven kangaroos returned home, Westergard faced 10 second-degree misdemeanor citations from the FWC. Westergard ended up pleading guilty to four of the charges but a judge withheld adjudication, meaning Westergard was not legally found guilty by the court.
16-year-old steals monkey from Palm Beach Zoo
In 2019, a 16-year-old jumped a fence at the Palm Beach Zoo and stole Kali, a rare Goeldi’s monkey.
In the first hours of the monkey being missing, the zoo and Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County had offered a combined $6,000 reward. Managers feared it was a financial crime: that the thief planned to sell Kali on the black market, where Goeldi’s monkeys can fetch as much as $10,000.
But the teen said he just wanted a pet monkey.
With the monkey missing for about 24 hours, a friend of the teen persuaded him to give up Kali.
Around midnight, the friend met a West Palm Beach police detective behind a strip mall south of Trump International Golf Club and handed the officer the money, held in a metal trap.
Kali was dirty and dehydrated but unharmed and apparently unshaken by her ordeal.
Prosecutors chose not to charge the juvenile.
“We are disappointed” that the teen is not being charged, a Palm Beach Zoo spokeswoman said at the time. “But we’re happy that Kali is doing well.”
A wild monkey roams around an Orange City neighborhood in this photo shared by the city’s police department in December 2024.
Other creatures on the loose
∎ In 2003, Ziles, a 35-pound African serval cat, escaped from a Stuart apartment and was hit with a tranquilizer dart a week later.
∎ Also in 2003, an 850-pound long-horned cracker cow charged down Southern Boulevard after escaping from the South Florida Fair. Five people suffered minor injuries before the cow was corralled.
∎ In 2002, Hershey, a 210-pound black bear, was spotted in suburban Boynton Beach and made occasional nocturnal appearances before being trapped near Wellington High School.
∎ In 2001, St. Lucie County deputies drove bumper-to-bumper along Interstate 95 to create a barricade after a large cow escaped. The cow belonged to former Sheriff R.C. “Bobby” Knowles. ∎ In 2000, a runaway spider monkey named Hanahan attacked a 65-pound Siberian husky named Balto in Palm Harbor’s Pop Stansell Park. ∎ In 1999, an 800-pound Black Angus and her 3-week-old calf escaped from a pasture near Blue Heron Boulevard and led police on a chase that ended in the Intracoastal Waterway. ∎ In 1990, Fatlip, a 130-pound capybara (the world’s largest rodent), found a hole in a fence at the Dreher Park Zoo and was picked up two days later from a pond at Colony Mobile Home Park.
The Orange City Police Department received multiple reports of monkey sightings within the city the week of December 17, 2024. If you encounter a monkey, contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) for assistance. Most important? Don’t feed or approach the animals.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Escaped or stolen wild animals that were roaming Palm Beach County