ERRANT RHESUS MACAQUE MONKEY CAPTIVATES CROWD IN PUERTO RICO NEIGHBORHOOD

SAN JUAN — With necks craned and eyes shielded from the sun, dozens of people gathered Wednesday around a towering eucalyptus tree in the heart of Puerto Rico’s bustling capital for a most unusual sight: a rhesus macaque monkey on the loose.

It was first spotted clinging to the tree’s branches Tuesday morning. Firefighters and other officials struggled to coax the monkey off the tree as the crowd offered suggestions.

“Give it some lunch to make it come down!” one man yelled.

“It’s too fat to come down!” retorted a woman nearby.

“Oh my gosh, it must be scared,” chimed in a third person.

When the first call reporting the monkey came in Tuesday morning, Ramón Luis Marcano, a lieutenant with the island’s Department of Natural Resources, did not believe it.

The caller reported the animal was in a tree on a busy, three-lane street that crosses the Santurce neighborhood in the capital of San Juan. “And I’m like, ‘Where?’”

He went to the scene with doubts, but there it was: a juvenile male rhesus macaque, which is native to south, central and southeast Asia.

“This is not normal,” Marcano said on Wednesday as he observed workers from his agency place a ladder between the tree and the rooftop of a nearby apartment and filled a cage with water, oranges and bananas to lure the monkey.

But the monkey refused to budge further, moving up and down the tree at times to the delight of the crowd below that included students, security guards and waiters.

“Look! Look! It’s moving! There it goes! There it goes!” yelled one woman as she pointed upward.

Police directed traffic as drivers slowed down to try to catch a glimpse of the monkey, which remained largely hidden by leaves and branches.