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Capture Shows Trapper Knows His Monkey Business

News Channel file photo by PAUL LAMISON

The monkeys shocked their keepers at Safari Wild, a 260-acre preserve in Polk County, by swimming an 8-foot-deep, 60-foot wide moat.

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By BAIRD HELGESON and KEITH MORELLI

bhelgeson@tampatrib.com and kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: December 18, 2008

Updated: 12/18/2008 09:36 pm

Meet Lex Brown, patas monkey trapper.

Brown closely followed the saga of the 15 patas monkeys that escaped nearby Safari Wild in April and became his wily neighbors.

The escape raised questions about Safari Wild's owner, Lex Salisbury. He was forced to resign Thursday as president and CEO of Lowry Park Zoo when a city audit discovered he used zoo resources to help build the animal park in northern Polk County.

Brown wasn't too bothered that five monkeys remained on the loose.

Then the fleet-footed primates started tinkering with equipment on his property. He also worried what a colony of patas monkeys would do to the Green Swamp if left to multiply for 20 years.

So he decided to catch them. First, he used binoculars to study them as they frolicked in his 500-acre sod farm.

"They are skittish," he said. "Can't get near them."

He saw the little traps Safari Wild laid out and figured he could do better.

"I decided to build a better mousetrap," said Brown, 49.

He built a larger cage for the monkeys to move in and out of until he decided to close the gates.

Then he made a discovery: Patas monkeys love grapes.

It wasn't long before Brown captured one of the monkeys, then two, then the rest.

On Monday, he returned the last four fugitive monkeys to Safari Wild.

"My wife loves them and hated to give them back," he said. "They all had personalities."

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Gary Morse confirmed that the five monkeys still at large in late October are accounted for. The last monkey was found dead in the woods of the Green Swamp.

"It was shot and killed by some unknown person," Morse said.

No further investigation is expected. "They are not protected in any way, shape or form," Morse said. "They're an exotic species."

The four surviving monkeys remain in secure cages, Morse said.

Editor Dennis Joyce contributed to this report. Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668. Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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