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The return of “Banana Sam”

Some people will steal anything that is not nailed down…

… and it would be a shame to do that to a cute little squirrel monkey! 😉 (Illegal, too!)

Banana Sam is  a 17-year-old, 2-pound squirrel monkey that was stolen from the San Francisco Zoo last week. Now, police are investigating the details surrounding his safe return and asking the zoo to hold off issuing the $5,000 reward that it had offered!

On Friday morning, zoo workers found a hole that had been cut onto a back gate of the perimeter fence at the zoo, sometime during the night. Then the thieves climbed onto the roof of the squirrel monkey exhibit, then cut two more holes in the mesh and monkey-napped Banana Sam with total disregard for the security guards and security cameras! (Just another lesson for those of you who believe that security cameras prevent crime….)

By Sunday, he was back at the zoo recuperating, out of the public eye, but zoo officials were unsure when he would be returned to the exhibit with his primate friends, the OTHER 17 squirrel monkeys of the exhibit.

I feel sorry for the little guy. Some of my close friends are primates, too! 😉

A visitor to Stern Grove in San Francisco’s Sunset District said that he found the monkey and coaxed him into his backpack! That just seems a little too EASY for me. Maybe it seemed a little too easy to SFPD as well! San Francisco police Officer Carlos Manfredi said that the unidentified man who claimed to have coaxed the monkey into his backpack is a person of interest in the case. I am sure that, if “Dirty Harry” Callahan were still with the department, we could get to the bottom of this matter quickly! 😉

Now, Banana Sam is a world-famous squirrel monkey. A Twitter account (@SF_BananaSam) that someone opened in his name had over 2,000 followers by Monday. The posts described his exploits throughout “The City.” In a city like San Francisco, THAT could “take in a lot of turf!” :-)

Welcome back, Banana Sam! I hope that you are back with ALL of your primate friends, soon!

-Bill at

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