Monkey business: Ontario police use bananas to lure monkey to captivity

INNISFIL, Ont. — Police in a small central Ontario town had to use bananas to lure a renegade monkey into captivity Sunday morning after it was spotted on the loose in a residential area.

Police say a passerby saw the spider monkey — whose name is Mango — at about 6 a.m.

Officers had to use bananas to keep Mango from running away before bringing him into captivity.

Police say they were able to find the monkey’s owner. And while monkey ownership isn’t outlawed province-wide, there are bylaws against it in Innisfil, Ont., where the owner lives.

Sgt. James Buchanan of the South Simcoe police says municipal officials will carry out a bylaw investigation this week.

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And Mango isn’t the first loose monkey Ontario officials have had to capture.

In 2012, Darwin the macaque became an Internet sensation after he was spotted wearing a shearling coat in an Ikea parking lot.

And Buchanan says capturing Mango wasn’t easy.

“It was all over the place,” Buchanan said of Mango. “We didn’t know how to catch a monkey, so we called the Bear Creek Animal Sanctuary.”

But before officials from the sanctuary got to the scene, officers had to come up with a way to keep the monkey nearby.

“The police officers had some bananas in their lunch, so they were giving the monkey bananas so it wouldn’t take off,” Buchanan said. “So the monkey hung out, because it liked the bananas.”

The Canadian Press