Posted by 
Authorities have confirmed the last of the monkeys that escaped from a ute towing a trailer load of 100 of the animals in the United States have been found.
Several monkeys had escaped following Friday's (Saturday AEDT) collision between a ute and a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway, state police said.
Only one had remained unaccounted for as of Saturday morning (Sunday AEDT), prompting the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other agencies to launch a search for it amid frigid weather.
READ MORE: Aussie Alex de Minaur's Australian Open career-first
Kristen Nordlund, a spokesperson with the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an email on Saturday evening (Sunday evening AEDT) that all 100 of the cynomolgus macaque monkeys had since been accounted for.
Three were dead after being euthanised.
The email did not elaborate on why the three were euthanised or how all came to be accounted for.
But Ms Nordlund said those euthanised were done so humanely according to American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines.
The shipment of monkeys was en route to a CDC-approved quarantine facility after arriving on Friday morning at New York's Kennedy Airport from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation, police said.
The Atlanta-based CDC said the agency was providing "technical assistance" to state police in Pennsylvania.
The collision occurred on a state highway near an Interstate 80 exit in Pennsylvania's Montour County, Trooper Andrea Pelachick told The Daily Item newspaper of Sunbury.
The location of the quarantine facility and the type of research for which the monkeys were apparently destined weren't clear, but cynomolgus monkeys are often used in medical studies.
A 2015 paper posted on the website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information referred to them as the most widely used primate in preclinical toxicology studies.
Earlier, police had urged people not to look for or capture any monkey.
"Anyone who sees or locates the monkey is asked not to approach, attempt to catch, or come in contact with the monkey. Please call 911 immediately," troopers tweeted.
READ MORE: Firefighter killed battling blaze labelled a 'hero'
https://twitter.com/PSPTroopFPIO/status/1484867249223745540
Trooper Lauren Lesher had said the concern was "due to it not being a domesticated animal and them being in unknown territory. It is hard to say how they would react to a human approaching them."
Ms Lesher said state police secured the scene for the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the CDC.
The drivers of the trucks weren't harmed and a passenger was transported to a medical centre for treatment of suspected minor injuries, according to the state police's crash report.
A crash witness, Michelle Fallon, told the Press Enterprise newspaper of Bloomsburg that she spoke with the ute driver and a passenger after the crash. The driver appeared to be disoriented, and the passenger thought he might have injured his legs, she said.
READ MORE: CCTV footage of a ute flipping over after crash
Crates littered the road as troopers searched for monkeys, rifles in hand.
Valley Township firefighters used thermal imaging to try to locate the animals, and a helicopter also assisted, the Press Enterprise newspaper of Bloomsburg reported.
The ute was heading west on I-80 when it got off at the Danville exit and then immediately tried to get back on, driving across the other lane, the newspaper reported.
Ms Fallon told the Press Enterprise that she was behind the pickup when it was hit on the passenger side by the dump truck, tearing off the front panel of the trailer and sending more than a dozen crates tumbling out.
She and another motorist who stopped to help were standing near the scene when the other driver said he thought he saw a cat run across the road, Ms Fallon said.
She peeked into a crate and saw a small monkey looking back at her, she told the newspaper.
"They're monkeys," she told the other motorist.
Source: 9News
