Yousef the monkey checks out of zoo – and swings by hotel

Published on Sunday 1 November 2009 21:13

PERHAPS he had been hoping his final destination would be a land flowing with nuts and bananas.

So being tranquillised on the rooftop of an Edinburgh hotel was probably not the ending this escapee monkey was hoping for when he made his break for freedom.

The inquisitive primate – a barbary macaque monkey called Yousef – decided to break free from his cage at Edinburgh Zoo on Saturday morning.

Not content with scaling an electric fence and exploring the zoo grounds, the four-year-old male decided to indulge in a bit of monkey business.

Leaping from lamppost to lamppost, the monkey, whose breed experts say poses no threat to the public, also negotiated Saturday morning traffic along busy Corstorphine Road.

However, his liberating experience was brought to a dramatic end on the rooftop of the hotel, a mile from where it had begun.

His movements had been tracked by keepers at Edinburgh Zoo and they finally caught him on the first-floor roof of the Edinburgh Capital Hotel on Clermiston Road. However, the furry fugitive not giving up his freedom easily and it took two attempts to hit him with tranquilliser darts before he could be returned to the zoo.

Once Yousef had been hit, monkey keeper Lorna Hughes climbed on to the roof and picked him up.

Claire Steven, general manager at the Edinburgh Capital, said the monkey had caught the eye of some of the guests. "There were a few people watching from windows to see what would happen to the monkey. It created quite an excitement," she said.

The first the hotel knew about their unexpected visitor was when zoo staff came into the reception area and asked if they could get on to their roof.

"They told us a monkey had escaped and was on our roof," said Steven. "There are several different levels to the rooftops and luckily the monkey was on the lowest one which meant that keepers could climb on it from the first floor."

She said it took two attempts to tranquillise the monkey.

"They initially tried to call it down but then decided that darting it was the only way they were going to catch it.

"Because the monkey was leaping around, the first dart missed but the second one hit him and after that a female keeper climbed on to the roof and carried him away."

A police spokeswoman said: "I believe the monkey was captured."

Yousef's escape comes just four months after five barbary macaque monkeys went on the run at Edinburgh Zoo after escaping from their enclosure by creeping under an electric fence.

The macaques were able to break free because they were younger and more agile than monkeys previously held in the cage. After the break-out, a zoo spokeswoman said the existing electric fence would be improved to ensure it would not happen again.

Last night, no one from the zoo was available for comment.