Hunter Encountes South Texas Monkey

A couple of years ago we ran a story about a hunter seeing a feral monkey in Texas and it garnered a tremendous amount of interest.

There exists an area in the South Texas Plains near Dilley where a population of Japanese macaques live and they have a long, bizarre story, which we have detailed in the past.

Our goal is always to raise awareness to wildlife and in the case of exotics it is good to let people know there are strange encounters to be had in the wild.

Bart Moore read our initial story and graciously shared an ecounter from his deer lease in South Texas and some awesome photos.

My brother-in-law is also on the lease and he was the first one that I know of that encountered one on our lease while hunting.  He was in the middle of a field in a ground blind when he saw some movement.  He looked over and saw a monkey headed in his direction.  The macaque noticed him just after he saw him and immediately puffed out his chest and got very red.  He walked in his direction and veered off before he was too close. For good measure, my brother-in-law had him in his sights the whole time with no intention of shooting him unless he was attacked.

Fast forward to last year and I was sitting in a blind one morning watching a doe and two fawns eating some corn from the feeder.  I noticed something too small for a deer on the ground and at first assumed it was a pig.  I glassed the animal and found that it was not a pig but was a monkey clearly on our side of the fence.  I took out my iPhone and snapped several pics with the phone up against my scope that are attached.

Click here to see four more photos including the deer being frightened away.

We are looking for more photos and videos of these monkeys in Texas. We would love to hear about your encounter.

Have you captured photos of monkeys or other unusual animals on your game camera? If so, please email photos to cmoore@fishgame.com.

Chester Moore, Jr.