PREVIEW

This drone footage shows the moment a Japanese macaque named Honshu was recaptured in Scotland after spending days on the run.
The primate suspect escaped from his enclosure at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie, Scotland on Sunday (1February2024).
Honshu was finally captured on Thursday afternoon after venturing into a local resident’s garden in search of a snack.
The macaque became something of a social media star due to his exploits - but animal experts warned the public not to approach or feed him.
The mischievous monkey was located with the help of BH Wildlife Consultancy - whose drones aided in his capture.
Keith Gilchrist, living collections operations manager at Highland Wildlife Park explained: “We can confirm we have successfully caught the macaque that escaped from the park on Sunday, named Honshu.
“After a call to our hotline just after 10am our keepers and drone team made their way to a member of the public’s garden where the monkey was eating from a birdfeeder and successfully used a tranquiliser dart to catch him.


“The monkey is on the way back to the park with our keepers where he will be looked over by one of our vet team and reintroduced to sub-adult males within the group.”


Describing how drones helped to slowly, slowly, catchee monkey, Ben Harrower the owner and founder of BH Wildlife Consultancy said, “While on site at the Highland Wildlife Park today, we received a call from a resident in the village of Insh saying they had seen the monkey in their garden at their bird feeders.

“We made a quick dash to the location and put the drone in the air. On first sight we were unable to detect anything on our thermal imaging other than a pheasant and a few Roe deer. After 10 minutes of searching, suddenly the thermal imaging picked up movement on a roof, and there he was. He was very well hidden under an alcove on a roof.”

“We stayed tracking the monkey’s movements who wandered around the roof several times. After 20 minutes of monitoring, a team from the Highland Wildlife Park were able to get into position and successfully tranquilise the monkey and bring him to safety.”


You can find out more about BH Wildlife Consultancy on Facebook (@bhwildlifeconsultancy), Instagram (@bh_wildlife_consultancy), and Twitter (@BenHarrower), and at https://www.bhwildlifeconsultancy.com/.