No one in the Boston media — let alone the national news — took notice of the final attempt to capture the Danville monkey. But the Manchester Union Leader covered the sad denouement to the once-headlining story. The paper quoted a wistful Laratondo: "I think he just went somewhere to die, because the area he was in most recently was way out in the woods."
There were no more sightings of the Danville monkey. "It was very sad," says Ashmun of that final search effort. Woolly monkeys have very thin lungs, she adds, making them susceptible to pneumonia. Once weakened, he would be easy prey to the coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls, and other natural predators of the area.
Kimball is not so sentimental. "The coydogs will eat anything they can get," he says. "He never stood a chance."
I suppose he didn't. But I still feel disappointed. It's the power of a media story — we want a satisfying, definitive ending, but things don't always go that way. Not on the big, important stories, and, sad to say, not on the small fluff stories, either.
To read the Talking Politics blog, go to thePhoenix.com/talkingpolitics. Follow David S. Bernstein on Twitter @dbernstein.
Read the rest of the Monkey Issue at thephoenix.com/monkey.
