3 Fugitive Baboons Captured In Sydney After Running Amok Near Hospital

Three baboons briefly escaped from a truck en route to a hospital in Sydney on Tuesday and roamed the streets, prompting a police response, huge reaction on social media and a subsequent investigation.

Authorities were transporting the male baboon and its two female companions to an animal research facility at a major hospital, the Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney’s inner west, so the male baboon could undergo a vasectomy, New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard said, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Hazzard confirmed the animals had been brought in from a colony in Wallacia in western Sydney, believed to be the NSW National Health and Medical Research Council colony, for treatment at the hospital.

He believed a failed lock on the truck or transport crate had resulted in the escape just as the animals arrived for the procedure.

Callers to 2GB radio station first brought the rogue baboons to light. A listener told incredulous host Ben Fordham that he looked out his sixth-floor window at the hospital and saw three baboons.

“Mate I’m deadset serious,” the caller said. “I just happened to gaze out at the carpark... and there were three baboons.”

A second caller, whose daughter was an occupational therapist at the hospital, called in to confirm that she’d just received a text from her daughter regarding the baboons at work. She said her daughter had “helped wrangle them.”

State police, who worked with handlers from Taronga Zoo, confirmed they had the situation under control and contained the animals a short time later.

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