A South Amer­i­can ca­puchin mon­key which went loose in Williamsville last week, trig­ger­ing fear and ex­cite­ment among res­i­dents, has fi­nal­ly been cap­tured. The mon­key was sup­posed to be tran­quilised and tak­en away by zookeep­ers on Fri­day but game war­den Steve Seep­er­sad said strangers cor­nered the mon­key and caged it be­fore the team of pro­fes­sion­als ar­rived. He said the zookeep­ers, who had the equip­ment to cap­ture it, were busy tran­quil­is­ing ma­raud­ing cows which had de­stroyed agri­cul­tur­al fields in Ce­dros. "They could not get to the mon­key on Fri­day as planned and we un­der­stand that on Sun­day, some­one cap­tured it. We do not know where it is now," Seep­er­sad said.

He warned that any­one who hunts the mon­key was li­able to be fined $5,000 or face six months im­pris­on­ment for vi­o­lat­ing the Wildlife Act."Sec­tion 5:2b clear­ly states that it is an of­fence to hunt a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal and we are ap­peal­ing to those who have the mon­key to bring it to the Forestry Di­vi­sion," Seep­er­sad said. Un­der the act, the penal­ty for be­ing in pos­ses­sion of a pro­tect­ed an­i­mal is $200.

Seep­er­sad said even though the fine was min­i­mal, he hoped it was not killed for its meat. A mon­key lover who spent the week­end in Williamsville said she was dis­ap­point­ed by the slow re­sponse of the au­thor­i­ties. She said vil­lagers were seen pelt­ing stones at the mon­key which fled in­to the home of a res­i­dent. "That poor mon­key had to hide. I am sor­ry he was caught by these wicked vil­lagers," she added. Po­lice said they too had launched a man­hunt for the mon­key. Any­one who has in­for­ma­tion on its where­abouts can con­tact the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion at 650-0200.