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CNN Live At Daybreak

Rare Monkey Found in Texas

Aired March 07, 2002 - 05:58   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: What better way to wrap up this hour, some monkey business. A rare African monkey has been found hanging out with the dogs in Texas.

Reporter Katie McCall of our Houston affiliate KHWB has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATIE MCCALL, KHWB-TV REPORTER (voice-over): He's called by the common name Walter, but this monkey is not ordinary. A white crowned mangabey, Walter is one of less than 200 of his kind in the world. Normally found on Africa's Ivory Coast, this one was living in an abandoned house in Fort Bend County with five dogs.

BILL JENKINS, SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: The monkey was up there eating a banana and scratching the little puppy's stomach which was laying upside down beside the -- beside the monkey.

MCCALL: The monkey had become a surrogate father to four puppies.

JENKINS: If one of the puppies would stray off, go underneath the house or get away from the mother, the monkey would go after it.

MCCALL (on camera): Since mangabeys are known to be social creatures, experts here at the Houston Zoo were not at all surprised to learn Walter had made friends with those dogs.

DR. JOHN FLANAGAN, VETERINARIAN, HOUSTON ZOO: Very highly social, and that's one of the reasons why monkeys make really bad pets because they really need to have other monkeys around to act normal and be normal.

MCCALL (voice-over): Walter now clings to a baby doll monkey given to him by the SPCA, which believes he was sold illegally and is the offspring of mangabeys purchased by Tulane University for a leprosy project that was canceled.

PATRICIA MERCER, DIRECTOR, HOUSTON SPCA: And at that point they probably illegally entered the pet trade. And it's our understanding that the Tulane mangabeys and their offspring have been tracked to at least 14 states in this country.

MCCALL: When Walter was found, he had lost part of his tail to frostbite and was underfed, something the SPCA says will never happen again.

In Houston, Katie McCall, Philadelphia's WB 17.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Walter is safe now though.

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