Overview
- A kayaker’s TikTok video (@fireball_1969) captured multiple monkeys jumping from trees into the water at Silver Springs, Florida.
- Florida Springs Passport shared the footage and noted that rhesus macaques live at Silver Springs as an invasive species.
- Reporting identifies three established non-native primates in the area: rhesus macaques, squirrel monkeys, and vervet monkeys.
- Accounts trace the population to a small group released by a tour-boat operator in the 1930s, with IFLScience naming the figure as Colonel Tooey.
- Past management removed roughly 1,000 animals between 1984 and 2012, and a 2015 estimate put the population near 176 with growth projected without intervention.