On February 16th, at the Woodland Park Zoo, a 12-year old was tranquilized. No, he wasn’t human, but that’s beside the point.

On a crisp Thursday morning a couple of weeks ago, a 12-year old African monkey of the species DeBrazza’s geunon made a rambunctious attempt to escape from his habitat. Garfield sophomore Talea Thurman was working her post as a youth volunteer at the zoo when the incident began around 10:40 AM.

On that fateful day, her post was inside the Zoomazium, a play area with a smorgasbord of activities for kids ages zero to eight.

In addition to being the most exciting thing on my to-do list for the coming weekend, the Zoomazium also happens to be housed in one of the more secure buildings on the zoo campus. This safe-house, with its monkey-proof ramparts and anti-primate turrets, became the site of a chaotic rush when the warning call about the loose animal went out to all zoo staff.

Thurman was charged with controlling the crowd that surged into the Zoomazium, on top of answering worried phone calls from the friends and family of those inside the zoo. Armed with nothing but a walkie-talkie, Thurman calmed and consoled the huddling patrons, with reports from the zoo’s emergency response team as they attempted to net the malicious mammal.

Those trapped inside the zoo united and supported one another, and even offered to assist Thurman and the zoo’s staff.
“People kept calling and being like, ‘I have a banana, do you want it?’,” remembers Thurman.

But at around 11:15 AM, the veterinary staff at the zoo succeeded in tranquilizing the escapee. The animal had been in its habitat for only two days, but I struggle to understand the animal’s discontent, as it has been seeing a female DeBrazza monkey since August 2008. Though they aren’t Facebook official, the young couple (she’s six) has been named a breeding pair by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums Species Survival Plan. The male DeBrazza has nothing to complain about in my book, as he can get his mack on while claiming it’s “for the survival of the species.” Pure genius.