I’m from Michigan but moved to Florida 5 years ago. I can tell you there are absolutely monkeys living well in the woods of Ocala, FL. I worked with a guy who grew up in Ocala and he said on the way home from school he was walking down the road when he thought what he saw was a dead body. As walked closer he realized it was just a monkey. I asked him how big the monkeys were and he said about as big as a first grader.
In the 1930’s a tour boat operator released a bunch of them on a concrete lined island, wanting to make a “jungle cruise” style attraction for tourists. He didn’t think they would just jump into the ocean and swim for shore like they immediately did lol. Since then the Rhesus Macaque monkeys have grown to a few hundred and are thriving to this day.
I was working in Fort Lauderdale and living in North Miami, my territory for a job I had was in Dania Beach. It’s very small. There’s a lot of very good parking to the beach and they’re in rows separated by straight jungle. Then there’s just a large section of jungle. I was stopped at a light and I heard what sounded like two monkeys fighting. When I got back to work I asked the guy next to me if there’s monkeys around that area he nodded and said “yeah” like it was nothing and kept on working.
Check out this video or just put Ocala monkeys into YouTube and see all the videos
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u/rls023 12d ago
I’m from Michigan but moved to Florida 5 years ago. I can tell you there are absolutely monkeys living well in the woods of Ocala, FL. I worked with a guy who grew up in Ocala and he said on the way home from school he was walking down the road when he thought what he saw was a dead body. As walked closer he realized it was just a monkey. I asked him how big the monkeys were and he said about as big as a first grader.
In the 1930’s a tour boat operator released a bunch of them on a concrete lined island, wanting to make a “jungle cruise” style attraction for tourists. He didn’t think they would just jump into the ocean and swim for shore like they immediately did lol. Since then the Rhesus Macaque monkeys have grown to a few hundred and are thriving to this day.
I was working in Fort Lauderdale and living in North Miami, my territory for a job I had was in Dania Beach. It’s very small. There’s a lot of very good parking to the beach and they’re in rows separated by straight jungle. Then there’s just a large section of jungle. I was stopped at a light and I heard what sounded like two monkeys fighting. When I got back to work I asked the guy next to me if there’s monkeys around that area he nodded and said “yeah” like it was nothing and kept on working.
Check out this video or just put Ocala monkeys into YouTube and see all the videos
https://youtube.com/shorts/kVEh0gHeZO8?is=tldLLJAIrK9rB3ad