London, July 7 (IANS) Over a dozen monkeys used tree branches to escape from a Japanese laboratory surrounded with a 17 feet high electric fence, only to be lured back in by scientists armed with peanuts.
The 15 monkeys escaped from Kyoto University’s primate research institute in Aichi Prefecture.
After escaping, the monkeys seemed unsure about what to do next. They sat by the gates of the research centre and were lured back by scientists carrying peanuts.
‘It was an incredible escape and the first time something like this has ever happened,’ Daily Telegraph quoted Hirohisa Hirai, the deputy head of the institute, as saying.
‘We think that maybe there was some kind of dispute among the monkeys in the forest and so this group decided to leave. Fortunately, they stayed by the fence after escaping as they probably wanted to stay near to the other monkeys. So we managed to recapture them all.
‘But we were extremely surprised by the intelligence and the power they used in order to escape.’
The trees have since been cut to ensure that the monkeys don’t try to escape again.
