(CP)
Thursday, May 8, 2008

VANCOUVER—Zoo keeper Cindy Hulst was making her regular rounds to give medicine to animals at the Greater Vancouver Zoo yesterday morning when she noticed an eerie silence from the spider monkey cage.
When she reached their enclosure, Hulst discovered one of the primates lying dead on the ground and the other missing.

“Usually, the two spider monkeys come vocalizing, excited to see me in the morning and there was nothing,” she said in an interview.
‘That’s when I realized that the male was lying outside. . . . I went over to him hoping there was still life in him, but he was already gone.”
The RCMP believe someone broke into the zoo in Langley, B.C. overnight and cut a hole in the spider monkey cage—leaving a male monkey named “Jocko” dead and stealing his mate, “Mia.”
Police believe the monkey was taken, with zoo staff saying the primate would have quickly returned had she left the cage on her own.
RCMP were struggling to come up with a motive for the break-in and theft.
“I bawled for an hour straight before I made any sense to anybody,” said Hulst, who has spent much of her 11 years at the zoo caring for the pair of monkeys.
“I’ve tried all day, and it doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”
Hulst said Jocko and Mia, each about the size of an infant and weighing 11 kg, arrived at the zoo about 15 years ago.
She said the adorable animals were favourites at the zoo—but cautioned that they’re still wild animals that would be difficult for just anybody to keep.
“They’re big monkeys and they can be extremely dangerous. . . . I imagine the people got some kind of injuries,” she said.
“She [Mia] definitely wouldn’t be pet material, that’s for sure. In the state that she’s in, very unpredictable.”
Mia is brown, about 45 cm tall, with a long tail and steel-blue eyes.
RCMP Cpl. Peter Thiessen said an autopsy would be performed on Jocko to determine how the monkey died. He also noted investigators are at a loss to explain what happened.
“This whole incident defies logic—why anybody would feel the need to do this,” Thiessen said.
“Is this to have as a personal pet? Is it to sell on the black market? There could be any number of reasons.”
Staff at the zoo, meanwhile, remain hopeful Mia will be returned unharmed.
“We want her back and if anybody has a heart left in them that has her, return her. No questions asked,” said zoo spokeswoman Jody Henderson.
“Don’t approach her though, if you do see her. I’m sure she’s traumatized and scared.”
Henderson said the monkey, which has very sharp teeth, is likely very agitated and should not be picked up or approached.