Video shows large group of invasive herpes monkeys diving from trees near boaters in Central Florida

While invasive species like Burmese pythons, housing-eating African land snails and giant Amazonian river monsters may get all the headlines, it’s easy to forget that Florida is also home to hundreds of STD-riddled monkeys. And, earlier this month, a boater rolled up on a few dozen of these primates practicing some impressive high dives.

In a video posted to Facebook by Ocala resident Matthew Schwanke on Dec. 3, dozens of invasive rhesus macaques can be seen jumping from trees into the Silver River below. 

“Short little river cruise turned into two rival monkey troops fighting it out for over half hour. Back and forth across the river like this screaming at each other,” wrote Schwanke in the post.

“It’s raining monkeys!” jokes Schwanke in the video.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time these monkeys were caught on camera leaping from trees in this same area. In 2019, a kayaker filmed a similar scene with a few of the monkeys splashing down within a few feet from his boat.

For nearly a century, Silver Springs State Park has been home to a growing population of roughly 300 rhesus macaque monkeys, which are native to Central and Southeast Asia.

According to reports, the monkeys were left behind from a tourist attraction called Colonel Tooey’s Jungle Cruise in the 1930s. It’s believed that Tooey left the monkeys on an island in the middle of the river because he believed they couldn’t swim.

He was wrong.

Though mostly contained in the Ocala area, over the years the monkeys have been spotted as far as The Villages, Apopka, Jacksonville and even Tampa.

While incredibly cute and symbolic of Florida’s “forever war” with invasive species, the monkeys have been an ongoing concern with wildlife officials, partially because of their STDs. 

A 2018 study from the Centers for Disease Control found that roughly 25% of the Silver Spring monkey population carried herpes B, which can cause brain damage in humans, and even death if not treated immediately.

It’s important to note that the virus is transmitted through saliva and other bodily fluids (like poop throwing), so as of now there have been no known transmission of herpes B from a wild rhesus macaque to a human.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has previously stated that it supports the removal of the monkeys from the state park, but it has not given any specifics on how or when it would complete this task.

This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2022.