Apparently that monkey didn't exist, so one is sceptical about this one

[oursin]

The Stroud monkey mystery: is a primate on the loose in the Cotswolds?

OK, for the sake of utter transparency, I have to point out that there are no confirmed monkeys in Stroud.... 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.

We note that Stroud is quite the boho centre of the Cotswolds, and we do wonder somewhat what whoever made the sightings was on....

While Hartlepool apparently goes big on the Legend of the Hartlepool Monkey, allegedly the sole survivor of a French ship wrecked nearby during the Napoleonic Wars, and hanged as a Damned Froggie Spy by the locals, the evidence of same is scant if not entirely lacking, and rests on a mid-19th music hall song deriving from an earlier shipwrecked monkey-hanging ballad -

Possibly about 'simple fisherfolk and their hostile-to-strangers ways'? because Wikipedia mentions similar tales ascribed to similar locations.

While I will concede that there are or have been breeding populations of feral wallabies at various sites about the British Isles, I remain sceptical about the Beast of Dartmoor and other large cats, not to mention the crocodile in the Bristol area - I have just looked this up and find this recent column: Bristol crocodile: Bus driver says he 'knows what he saw':

[P]olice officers who crossed his path while out on the beat told him they had found crocodiles in houses used by drug dealers. When the animals got too big, they got released into the river, they told him.

The questions this raises....

Comments

[lilysea]

Funny you mention the wallabies - my first thought was "I bet the monkey is actually a feral wallaby seen in low light conditions"

[oursin]

Maybe, except I'm not sure feral wallabies have so far been recorded in the Cotswolds....

[lexin]

I find it hard to believe in a feral monkey near Stroud.

But I know there are deer in East London, so anything is possible.

[lilysea]

There was a SKUNK photographed at an outer London bus stop - someone's dumped pet :(

[oursin]

Skunks not even being native to these shores.... o dearie me.

[lexin]

There's a film somewhere of a massive snake on Leytonstone High Road eating a pigeon. It used to be on the BBC website. And it's a snake not native to the UK.

[glinda]

I mean, at least a monkey could be someone’s escaped pet… (There was a case in Glasgow a couple of years ago of a monkey - a marmoset apparently - spotted in Cambuslang station. Well, less spotted than tempted down from its perch by station staff with a tin of fruit as being someone’s pet it was pretty tame…)

[anna_wing]

I've seen the parakeets in Hampton Court palace, but I always assumed that big cats seen in the UK were escapees. And a lost baby caiman was apparently caught in Bristol a few years ago.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/proof-bristol-crocodile-realwell-283679

[oursin]

Wow - though it sounds rather titchy to have been the one in the earlier sightings. One is reminded of the stories about the pet alligators that ended up in the sewers of New York....

There are parakeets around the gardens and the tiny park here sometimes.