14 mischievous monkeys escape from zoo in Okinawa

Fourteen Yakushima macaques escaped from a zoo in Okinawa, southern Japan, on Thursday morning.

The Mainichi newspaper reports that a zoo employee found all 14 monkeys missing in the morning. The employee raised the alarm, and the zoo was temporarily closed while about 100 people including zoo staff and police conducted a search.

A Yakushima macaque, a kind of macaque native to Yakushima Island, eats cherry flowers, on Yakushima Island, on March 22, 2019. [File Photo: IC]

By Friday morning, half of the escapees had been captured and returned to their enclosure.

A video posted online shows that the monkey business started when the macaques opened the door to their enclosure and made a run for it while workers were preparing to transfer them into their open air enclosure.

The Yakushima macaque, a subspecies of Japanese macaque that is native to Yakushima Island, are intelligent animals that can attack people if they're feeling cornered. City residents have been advised not to try to capture the animals if they catch sight of them.