- It could be worse — at least it’s not herpes alligators.
Venturing outdoors in Florida is risky business, to say the least. If you don’t fall victim to rampaging locals, the Sunshine State’s wildlife — from alligators to bears and giant pythons — might get you.
You there’s another potentially dangerous animal in Florida that you may not have known about. A horde of monkeys lurks in Florida’s forests.
And many of them can give you herpes.
Now, we know what you’re thinking: just don’t do anything unspeakable with the monkeys and you’ll be fine. But the thing is, they can spread the virus by simply scratching or biting you.
Things get even worse, though. The strain of herpes the monkeys carry is a particularly nasty one that could, in the worst-case scenario, kill a human being.
That makes trying to deal with the monkey pretty danged dangerous. As a result, they’re more or less free to roam, breed, and cause havoc.
After all, you don’t want to risk catching monkey herpes, do you?
That sure would make for a fascinating conversation to have with your significant other. “No, honey, I haven’t done anything with that hot single down the street. It must’ve been the monkeys that gave me herpes.”
Where’d You Come From, Herpes Monkey?
Let’s try and unpack this latest episode of Florida Madness. After all, there are no native primate species in the state — so where did the herpes monkeys come from?
Well, to be accurate, the monkeys are rhesus macaques that naturally live in India and Southeast Asia. According to a widely accepted theory, they arrived in Florida in the 1930s.
At the time, a man known as Colonel Tooey operated a glass-bottom boat, ferrying tourists up and down Silver River. However, business wasn’t as good as he would’ve liked, so he decided to add an artificial tourist attraction to the river.
Tooey acquired six rhesus macaques and released them to an island on the river, figuring that the monkeys wouldn’t cross the water. Not so — rhesus macaques are great swimmers and they soon escaped their small island.
But whether on the island or riverbanks, tourists enjoyed seeing the exotic creatures. They brought in so much money that Tooey decided to double down on his plan and released another six monkeys to the wild in 1948.
The macaques soon figured out that Florida’s moist forests weren’t all that different from those of their distant homelands — but here, they had no natural predators to worry about. As a result, they could focus fully on making more monkeys.
Their numbers soon exploded. By the 1980s, there were approximately 400 macaques in Florida and they’ve stayed around that level since.
Today, most of the monkeys seem to live in Marion County, in the Silver Springs State Park. Yet, they’ve been spotted in many other surrounding counties as well.
Herpes Squared
Alright, we now know where the monkeys came from. But how did they get herpes?
The thing is, they didn’t really “get it” from anywhere. Macaques are natural carriers of the herpes B virus and have been so for thousands, if not millions of years.
In fact, according to many theories, humans originally caught herpes from some ancient monkey. No, Grug the Caveman didn’t do dirty deeds with it (probably) — the infection was a result of the monkey biting Grug.
It’s the same deal with Florida’s macaques. According to estimates, a quarter of the macaque population carries herpes B. However, only about 10% of the monkeys are capable of transmitting the virus orally, that is through a bite.
Consequently, the risk of contracting herpes from the macaques is fairly small. That’s a good thing, too, because you really don’t want herpes B.
You see, herpesviruses come in a wide variety of forms. In humans, the B virus is one of the nastiest out there.
Unlike the usual human herpes that gives you cold sores, herpes B causes brain inflammation. Without treatment, the condition is highly likely to kill you, and even with treatment the survival rate hovers just above 50%.
That makes the human Herpes simplex seem almost pleasant in comparison.
How to Avoid Monkey Mayhem
If you happened to have booked a vacation trip to Florida, you may by now be considering canceling the tickets. You don’t need to do that, though, as long as you exercise reasonable caution if you happen to encounter the monkeys.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has published handy guidelines for dealing with the state’s unwelcome macaques.
According to the commission, the best way to not get attacked by macaques is not to attract them to you in the first place. That means carefully sealing and bagging away all your trash, since the monkeys like rummaging through garbage for food.
If you come upon a macaque, don’t offer it food or even place anything edible on the ground near it. You should also keep your children and pets safely away from them since the critters can be irritable.
Finally, if a macaque bites or scratches you, you should immediately wash the wounds and seek professional medical help. It may also be a good idea to call the National B Virus Resource Center’s emergency information hotline at 404-413-6550.
And that’s how you deal with Floridian herpes monkeys. Join us next week, as we introduce you to Minnesota’s gonorrhea gorillas.
