Celebrities: Monkeys near Florida airport delight visitors

By TERRY SPENCER
Associated Press

DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — For 70 years a group of non-native monkeys has made their home next to a South Florida airport runway, delighting visitors and becoming local celebrities. About 40 small vervet monkeys live in a mangrove preserve next to Fort Lauderdale’s international airport. They are descendants of about a dozen who escaped from a roadside zoo in the late 1940s. A group is working to preserve the monkeys, who are threatened by cars and inbreeding. Florida usually kills invasive species to protect native animals, but tolerates the vervet monkeys as long as they stay put. The monkeys are a surprise for airport passengers when they enter parking lots looking for food.