Monkeys near Florida airport delight visitors

DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — For 70 years a group of non-native monkeys has made their home next to a South Florida airport runway, delighting visitors and becoming local celebrities.

About 40 small vervet monkeys live in a mangrove preserve next to Fort Lauderdale’s international airport.

They are descendants of about a dozen who escaped from a roadside zoo in the late 1940s.

The monkeys are a surprise for airport passengers when they enter parking lots looking for food.

A group is working to preserve the monkeys, who are threatened by cars and inbreeding.

Invasive species are usually killed to protect native animals, but these monkeys are tolerated as long as they stay put.

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