Pass notesAnimal welfareTwo people claim to have seen what has tentatively been identified as a spectacled langur. If so, it’s not immediately clear where it came from ...
Name: The Stroud monkey.
Age: Unknown.
Appearance: Like a regular monkey, only presumably a bit more middle class.
Why is there a monkey in Stroud? OK, for the sake of utter transparency, I have to point out that there are no confirmed monkeys in Stroud.
Oh. But there is probably a monkey in Stroud.
Where’s your proof? A Facebook post by someone who said they saw a monkey in Stroud. Specifically across the fields from Whiteshill to the main road.
Listen, any crank can write anything they want on Facebook. Someone else saw it running north, heading towards Painswick.
OH MY GOD, THERE’S A MONKEY ON THE LOOSE IN STROUD! Yes, by all accounts – or at least two accounts.
What sort of monkey? A chimp? A gorilla? Well, first of all those are apes and not monkeys. Second, the woman who first spotted the Stroud monkey said that her mother-in-law grew up in India and is confident that it is a spectacled langur.
Right, that’s interesting. What are you doing?
Nothing. Are you Googling: “Can a human beat a spectacled langur in a fight?”
Yes. What does it say?
Apparently, a langur moved into an abandoned house in a village in the Indian state of Haryana in 2022, and spent its time attacking children, vandalising cars and pushing people off bicycles. Better leave it alone, then.
So, to return to my initial question, why is there a monkey in Stroud? The leading theory is that someone was keeping it as a pet, and it escaped.
Is that even legal? Apparently, yes. You can, if you want to, walk into a pet shop and, without a licence, buy a monkey. The Born Free Foundation estimates that 5,000 primates are kept as pets in the UK, many of which live in incorrectly sized cages and suffer social isolation. The government did plan to stop this, but quietly dropped a proposed animal welfare bill in June.
That’s grim, even the loose Stroud monkey can be blamed on the Tories. Not as grim as the thought of a spectacled langur, traditionally found in warm countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, trying to survive alone during a freezing British winter.
How unbelievably sad. But let’s think positive. Now that people know there’s a monkey loose in Stroud, they’ll be looking for it, and this awareness might expedite its safe return. It shouldn’t be too hard. A monkey escaped from Paignton Zoo in August, and they found it very quickly. And in November, a lion escaped from a circus near Rome, and was located and collected within seven hours.
And if the monkey remains loose? It can always scavenge food from Jasper Conran’s farmers’ market in the centre of Stroud. Hope it likes artisanal cheese.
Do say: “There’s a monkey on the loose in Stroud.”
Don’t say: “You wouldn’t get this tomfoolery in Gloucester.”
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