Image: screengrab from Instagram/@fitfamelpaso
A woman who trespassed into a monkey enclosure to feed the animals “hot Cheetos” at the El Paso Zoo in Texas, USA, has been fired from her job and is facing potential charges.
The whole ordeal was caught on camera and posted by The Real Fit Fam El Paso on its Instagram account on May 23. It has since gone viral with over 164,000 views as of May 26.
The woman can be seen sitting on the rocks feeding spider monkeys some junk food before happily letting herself out of the enclosure.
She was later identified by Lovett Law Firm as one of their employees, named Lucy Rae, according to ABC-7 on May 23.
The law firm has since fired Rae from the company, it said in a statement released on Facebook yesterday, May 25.
“The firm has always been a strong supporter of animals and animal advocacy. We absolutely do not condone this irresponsible and reckless behavior. We support the El Paso Zoo and our thoughts go out to the spider monkeys, Libby and Sunday, and hope that they will recover from this very traumatic experience,” Lovett Law Firm said.
Rae’s case is currently under investigation as the zoo has already filed a complaint, according to El Paso police.
The zoo’s director, Joe Montisano, meanwhile, labeled the trespasser as “stupid and lucky” as what she did was deemed extremely dangerous.
Montisano is also considering modifying the fences to avoid similar cases in the future, the report said.
“These are primates we’re talking about, they could do some substantial damage to you,” Mason Kleist, a zookeeper at facility, was, meanwhile, quoted as saying.
“They may be small monkeys but they can take you to the ground if they wanted to,” he added.
Aside from endangering herself, Rae was said to have also endangered the lives of the two spider monkeys, named Libby and Sunday, by feeding them the said food.
The spider monkeys have specialized diets and feeding them other food, such as hot Cheetos, could harm the monkeys, according to the report.
The zookeeper also noted that the woman also put the monkeys at risk of getting infected by the novel coronavirus, stressing that they have been taking extreme precautions to avoid just that.
Kleist also stressed that Rae’s trespassing also “ruins years of work” of zookeepers building trust between them and the animals just “for a video on Instagram.” Ian Biong /ra
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