Monkeys
in Morehouse? Residents swear they've seen primates.
Alligators living in the sewers of New York City.
Remember "Mikey," the kid in the Life cereal television ads in the
1970s? He died when he drank a carbonated drink in the 1980s after
eating Pop Rocks candy.
Urban legends. Great stories with little if any truth in their
makeup.
There's what has become a rural legend in parts of Morehouse
Parish.
There's a monkey in them thar woods.
Folks will swear they saw them. Wayne Warner saw one on Knox Ferry
Road. Brett Smith saw one too, miles away from Warner's sighting,
on Lum Day Road.
When you start talking about primates in the parish, people get
kinda skeptical.
"If I tell you I saw a monkey," Warner says, "then I saw a
monkey."
And most folks who know Warner agree.
"If Mr. Wayne says he saw a monkey, I believe him," says Mike
Tubbs. "He's a real standup, honest man."
And Warner isn't the only one who claims to have seen a primate in
these parts.
Dewanna Smith's husband Brett came home a couple of months ago and
told her he'd seen one on Lum Day Road, off the Crossett
Highway.
"I told him 'Brett, you've been working graveyard and it was
dark,'" Dewanna says. "He says he swears it was a monkey. I was
picking at him, but I believe him. And I sure believe Mr.
Wayne."
A spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
in Monroe says though the he hadn't heard specifically about the
Morehouse monkeys, he doesn't doubt the authenticity of the
reports. He says people buy them as pets, realize they aren't meant
to be domesticated and turn them into the wild. He also says
(another legend perhaps?) that there are literally communities of
monkeys is south Louisiana where boy monkeys met girl monkeys and
made baby monkeys.
Justin Lee, an enforcement agent for the LDWF in Morehouse Parish,
says he's heard the stories but has never seen either alleged
monkey.
"It's almost like black panthers," Lee says. "You hear stories
about black panthers in Louisiana. I know we have panthers, but I
have never seen a black panther. And I've heard stories about the
monkeys. I'm familiar with both of those areas (Lum Day Road and
Knox Ferry Road), but I've never seen a monkey."
Warner said he heard stories during the summer of 2005 about people
who thought they'd seen a monkey. His actual sighting came last
fall, and it could have come two days after another sighting.
"About two days before I saw that one, I saw something cross the
road in about the same spot that I thought must've been a dog,"
Warner says. "It was about 150 yards down the gravel part of Knox
Ferry where I saw him. And I know what I saw that time. I saw a
monkey."
After he started sharing his sighting with others in the area,
Warner says people started relating their own stories. There was
Paul Sander's son who said he got about five feet from the animal.
Sanders' son said the primate had markings on its tail and face
that led him to believe it was a lemur.
"Then there was another old boy who told me he thought he'd seen
one but said he wasn't about to say anything about it because folks
would have thought he was crazy or lying," Warner says.
Lee said primates are herbivores, who eat leaves and fruit. He said
there is more than adequate vegetation in the area to support a
monkey.
"They could survive or even thrive in this type environment," Lee
said.
Thursday afternoon, a hunter was coming out of the woods along
Mason Cave Road. The man, who asked not to be identified, said he'd
heard Warner's story. And like others, he vouched for Warner's
credibility. He then posed a question that bears repeating.
"Don't you think a boy monkey would get awfully lonely out here by
himself?"
Who knows, there may be a community of monkeys in them thar
woods.
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To locate
the cache:
Using the
coordinates provided, locate the foreigner, then go approximately
20-25 feet South/SouthWest to locate the ammo box.