Is it time to start hunting Monkeys in Florida?

[Tbone-AZ]

Some brain child must have released some monkeys and like hogs now has an issue with them too.

OCALA, Fla. - An Ocala man said monkeys from Silver Springs State Park have invaded his property.

Brian Pritchard lives four miles away from the park, but over the last few days his game camera has taken hundreds of photos of about 50 rhesus macaques eating from a deer feeder in his backyard.

Silver Springs State Park recently shut down two areas because of an increased monkey presence. A family visiting the state park last week recorded a video of the monkeys aggressively chasing them and showing their teeth.

Pritchard had put out a feeder with a camera to catch photos of deer, but instead, he got monkeys.

The animals have taken more than 250 pounds of deer food in the last few days.


Read: Silver Springs State Park, FWC work to find plan to decrease monkey population

“Obviously the monkeys have it down pat. They don’t have to wait on it. They climb up the poles and they just sit there and spin it off the plate,” Pritchard said.
Researchers estimate 200 non-native macaques live at the park and said many carry the deadly herpes B virus.

http://www.wftv.com/news/local/monkeys-swarm-ocala-mans-property/552589371

 

[Lefty SRH]

Sounds fun! How much is the license?

 

[CountryWildcat]

Shouldn't be any fee, no license needed. Should be a free for all, with no burden to the the person disposing of them.

If anything, there should be a small bounty, not enough to get every nut around scouring the woods, bur enough to encourage a outdoorsman to carry a rifle, and turn one in if dispatched.

 

[Tbone-AZ]

I have seen them in Thailand and other Asian countries, THey are also in india, and a version in Ethiopia.. They steal everything they can get their mitts on..

Worse than 10 raccoons easy.. shoot on site.

 

[Tnslim]

Ebola usually starts from monkeys.

 

[JTPinTX]

I'm thinking that would be a heck of a lot of fun if you could get some NV or thermal and find where they were sleeping in the trees at night. As long as you had someone covering your six with a handheld scanner to make sure none of them slipped up on you. I don't need any Herpes B.

 

[ny hunter]

Oceola turkey and macaque hunt round it off with a few hogs

 

[Tbone-AZ]

seems some of the park is closed for the past couple of days from these monkeys,.

The parks people tried to get rid of them, but then people got mad the trappes were selling them off to testing places. lol.

WHAT DID THEY THINK THEY TRAPPERS WERE GOING TO DO, IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN GO LET THEM GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Seems to me that anyone seeing them should reduce the population before that area has a really serious problem.
http://www.ocala.com/news/20170710/aggressive-monkeys-trouble-silver-springs-park

 

[ny hunter]

there's over 200 monkeys and there getting aggressive
aggressive monkeys

 

[Rocky1]

The monkeys at Silver Springs got away during the filming of a Tarzan movie waaaaaaaaaay back there in the middle of the last century. I want to say Johnny Weissmuller was playing Tarzan in the movie, for all you old farts that remember back that far. Mid-50s as best I recall.

State predator control officer has been in there several times over the years, bunny huggers, which there is plenty of down in central Florida, about have a flippin coronary every time they hear that they're thinning the monkeys out. So the state decided to trap them. All fine and good, but what do you do with a wild monkey after you trap it? Kinda hard to give away a wild monkey, with herpes B, and bad attitude. So yeah... I think they did offer a bunch of them to the University of Florida, to be used for research purposes. And, the bunny huggers had a flippin cow over that too!

Geniuses don't understand what kind of damage they could do to the eco-system, what kind of problems they could create for people that live in the surrounding area, that they are on the verge of having to close the park, which brings a lotta bucks into the local community. Monkeys live in trees, we all moved in where there are trees, we should accept them, because they are warm and cuddly... Y'all know the routine!


Predator control officer said they were pretty simple to hunt, canoe down the river, used a .22 caliber rifle with shorts picking them off.

 

[Tbone-AZ]

This guy with the feeder, makes me think the 200 number is a low. just like how they count wolves in the west. Somehow they always under count them.

Either way, this guy with the feeder seems to have it down. Just add the subsonics and a suppressor and drop them at the local gator hole. Gator has to eat too.

NO VIDEO, NO YOUTUBE, NO FACEBOOK, just handle it, and carry on.

 

[Rocky1]

Originally Posted By: Tbone-AZThis guy with the feeder, makes me think the 200 number is a low. just like how they count wolves in the west. Somehow they always under count them.

Either way, this guy with the feeder seems to have it down. Just add the subsonics and a suppressor and drop them at the local gator hole. Gator has to eat too.

NO VIDEO, NO YOUTUBE, NO FACEBOOK, just handle it, and carry on.


Under count? Under count?? FWC under count??? NOOOOOO!!! Never!!!! Not FWC!

FWC Panther Mortality report for the state of Florida averages 40 or so annually killed in 5 counties in south central Florida, most i.e. 95 - 98% of them, hit by cars, annually for the last 4 years I've been receiving it. And, for the last 4 years I've been receiving it, the population state wide has been shown at roughly 200 cats STATEWIDE. No increase, no decrease, 25% of the population hit by cars in 4 counties... annually?

Do those numbers sound even remotely feasible to anyone else? I mean setting the science aside and simply looking at that from a point of probability and statistical analysis, does that even remotely sound feasible??


Bear population in the state was estimated at 2500 back in 2001, AMAZING RECOVERY since they estimated numbers at 200 in the state in 1990. Even more amazing since they estimated numbers statewide at 20 back in the early 80s when they were trying to close the season, and we killed 22 in one small corner of one county at that time. Meaning the state's population increased 1100% from -2, that decade. Study referenced on the reproductive rate to maturity that FWC cited in their Black Bear Management Plan would have put bear numbers at 12,500 in 2012, based upon their 2500 population in 2001. They were saying 3000 bear statewide in 2012. I called B_S_, they claimed they reproduced really slow, and they just didn't feel those numbers were higher than 3000 based upon their data. HELLO!!! How do you explain a 10 fold increase in numbers in 10 years, for 2 decades, and then drop to a 50% increase, in the next 10 years?

Study on the reproductive rate of Black Bears conducted in the Ocala National Forest, central Florida, from 2000 - 2010 indicated the reproductive rate of Black Bears to maturity in the Ocala National Forest was nearly twice as high as the study previously used in the Black Bear Management Plan and bear numbers in the state should have been closer to 20,000 bear statewide in 2012.

Camp Blanding had bear crossing signs on the state highway that runs through it for more than 15 years, before FWC recognized a breeding population there.

Fast Forward to 2015, we hold our first bear season in 25 years, season was slated for 2 weeks, 320 bear to be removed from the population statewide, XXX bear in each of 4 units. The season was closed at the end of the second day, having filled the state's established quota for bear to be removed statewide, in essentially 2 of the 4 units.

There were 2 bear checked in, in the unit I live in, approximately 3200 square miles, which here in my backyard, borders the Okefenokee Swamp in south Georgia, a half million acres of bear habitat in one little chunk. Likewise there are several hundred thousand acres of established bear habitat here in north Florida that are a part of the Okefenokee eco-system as well. When the Okefenokee burns, which it does do every 5 - 7 years during drought cycles, our bear population here will increase 20 - 30% overnight, as bear are driven from the swamp. And, it takes years for them to migrate back. I have a neighbor who had pictures of 23 different bear on his game camera over the course of a year, at a feed plot that isn't a hundred yards from his back door, the last time a fire pushed the bear population south in the swamp. He lives right next to the highway, with 6 - 8 neighbors within a half mile radius of his house. A mile down the road, another neighbor was deer hunting and had 8 bear cross his feed plot in one large bunch, that year.

FWC won't tell you there's a bear problem, but they know there is. Even when they know there's a bear problem, they won't admit the numbers, because if they admitted the numbers, the resulting hysteria would cause the public to demand a bear season immediately, and they don't want to fight the lawsuit the bunny huggers are prepared to bring at this time. In recent meeting concerning a bear season for 2017, they plainly stated that while the data was there to support a hunting season and evidence was there to support a hunting season, and public support of a hunting season was there; they were going to pursue and focus on non-lethal means of lessening bear/human conflict, "because there was not as much public support found for a bear hunting season as there was for a general hunting season."