A monkey on the loose in South Florida has residents peering in trees | Miami Herald

A monkey turned up near North Miami Beach’s King of Diamonds strip club earlier this week.

Now, a monkey has taken up residence in a tree about 50 feet above the ground in the same city near Northeast 172nd Street and 16th Avenue, NBC6 reports.

If it’s the same one — both have been described as a vervet, a monkey native to Africa but not altogether uncommon in South Florida — that monkey sure gets around. And has captured the community’s attention.

“I walked outside and I saw a dog running down the alley, what I thought was a dog, and then it started doing some ninja stuff and jumping on houses and stuff,” Zac Groffman told the station. “I was like, that’s not a dog.”

If that non-dog is the same monkey, it could be the one from a colony of free ranging monkeys that the Dania Beach Vervet Project observes. On March 20, North Miami Beach police were trying to locate the monkey.

Nine days later, on Thursday, North Miami Beach police were once again involved in this monkey business. “There is no threat to the public at this time,” they tweeted.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is also pitching in on the monkey search.

Missy Williams, who runs the Vervet Project, told NBC6 that monkeys, when they reach sexual maturity around age 5, tend to look for other monkey groups to join. There is a colony of wild monkeys living around West Lake Park on Sheridan Street in Hollywood, about 10 miles north.