Friday I finally had a chance to head over to Silver Springs State Park. While the park’s namesake is stunning and has an interesting past, that story will have to wait, because the main reason I drove 100 miles inland was for some monkey business.

Lucky for me the weather was gray and moody, with rain threatening at any moment. Why was this a good thing? For a couple reasons, the cloudy skies kept the temperature down and scared the crowds of tourists away. Which the monkeys and I both took full advantage of.

While I only saw a dozen of them, there are over 400 Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta) freely roaming the banks of the Silver River. They are descendants of 12 monkeys that an enterprising tour boat operator purchased and released onto a small island in 1938. Colonel Tooey had hoped to capitalize on the public’s fascination with Tarzan. Unfortunately, he did not do his homework and the Rhesus Monkeys promptly swam away.

As you can tell, they didn’t go far. Over the ensuing years, free food enticed them to stick around and colonize the area. Though that practice ended in 1993, when the historic tourist attraction was purchased by Florida and became a state park, the monkeys have remained.

While the state considers this colony to be invasive and a threat to native species (and poses a slight human health risk as they can carry Herpes B) there are no current plans for eradication. Not only would it be expensive but the public outcry would be immense.

I enjoyed getting a peek into their lives, it was well worth the drive!