A woman was walking down a street in Bangkok, Thailand when she caught sight of something terribly wrong.
It was a monkey—but not just any monkey—this was a monkey that should have been dead.
He had a metal arrow sticking out of his eye, but miraculously, he was still alive.
Some vile person had shot him in the eye with a harpoon gun.
When the woman, named Mongkol Plus, realized how bad the situation was, she tried to capture the monkey and bring it to the vet.
But the monkey was scared and jumped into a lake to escape.
“He obviously did not know he was being rescued,” Tom Taylor from the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who worked on the case, told The Dodo.
But Mongkol really wanted to help the monkey, whom she named Rocket. Finally, she got hold of him—and rushed him to a clinic. Taylor told her that the arrow went through Rocket’s skull and just missed his brain.
Then he could kill him immediately.
The veterinarian was able to save Rocket’s life. After surgery, he has responded well to further treatments, Taylor said.
According to Taylor, Rocket’s case is not a unique one.
Quite a few macaque monkeys are shot every year in big cities in Thailand, he said.
“Urban macaques often come onto conflicts with humans and are regularly persecuted as pests. In this case, Rocket has been shot in the face with an arrow; this may have been because someone wanted to seek vengeance for him damaging their property or it may have been by someone who wanted to use the animal as a target while out sport hunting,” Taylor told The Dodo.
After his successful surgery, Rocket is now undergoing a different challenge.
The veterinarians noticed that he’s a bit overweight. It’s probably because he, like other monkeys in his situation, often eats human junk food like potato chips.
In a few weeks, Rocket will be ready to be released again. But until then, he’s in a rehabilitation center run by the Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand.
There, he’s comfortable and can rest for a while after going through such an awful ordeal!
Rocket is described as a nice guy who likes to eat.
I don’t have words strong enough for people who would do this to an animal. Share if you agree!
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