Ah, late September in Texas. Can you feel it? Finally, we can all walk outside and take a deep breath without fear our lungs will liquify in the stifling heat. It’s time for things to happen. We “basics” can all head to Starbies for a PSL, though you can find me at Latham Bakery sipping a Maple Pecan. We can pull out our flannel shirts and sweat our way to winter. Some of you will look cute with your flannels and your trucker caps and your short boots. I will look as if I’ve misplaced my ox. It’s time to buy all the pumpkins. It’s time to pull out the monogrammed sweatshirts. It’s time to make a run on felt hats. Let’s open the box of “it’s fall y’all” kitchen décor. And, for some of us, it’s time to do our favorite thing. Halloween approacheth. Covid be darned, it looks like we’re having a legitimate spooky season this year! After all, this is Texas. Home of the free. Land of the, er, rather odd.
Lone Star Travel Guide publishes an annual list of the most popular quirky roadside stops in the state. All the usual suspects are there, from the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo to the Stonehenge replica in Ingram to the Navasota teapot to, of course, the Prada store in Marfa. Even our state fair, the largest in the entire US with our 55’ tall ambassador, Big Tex, is, well, odd in the most fabulous way. You have to admit it. We are the great state of Texas. We like it big. We like it absurdly strange. Texas consistently ranks in the top 8 of the contiguous 48 states in regard to Sasquatch sightings, proving that a jaunt through the stars at night can possibly scare the tarnation out of you. Recently, however, Animal Planet threw me a curveball. I was about to leave for an appointment when I turned on the television, you know, for the dogs to watch while I was gone. They prefer Animal Planet. Color me shocked, and late to my appointment, as I sat down and stared at the TV in disbelief. Did you know about the Japanese Snow Monkeys in South Texas?
In 1972, during the heyday of the Vietnam War, a S TX rancher heard about a colony of monkeys in a Japanese town that had gotten so exorbitant in size, the locals were fed up. They wanted them gone, by any means necessary. The rancher, Edward Dryden, was not an animal rights activist. Admittedly, he was seeing dollar signs as he wondered how much money he could make from selling the monkeys to research labs. This is how over 150 Japanese Snow Monkeys found their way to Encinal, TX. Here is where it really gets crazy. Dryden says “a whole lot” of the monkeys died from the heat. They were snow monkeys, after all. Many more succumbed to predators, namely coyotes, the bobcat population, and rattlesnakes. There were survivors, however. They adapted and began doing well, very well. In fact, within a few years, the Encinal area was full of nuisance monkeys. Dryden died soon after, his dreams of rolling in his monkey selling dough never coming to fruition. The monkeys were rounded up and placed in a sanctuary in Dryden Texas. They captured every last one of them, right? That’s not what wildlife consultant Marshall Bryant says. From Pearsall, TX gas station sightings of monkeys climbing the water tower for a cool drink to numerous brush sightings by S Texas hunters and their game cameras, the primates have been spotted in Dilley, Cotulla, and Tilden in the last 3 years. Bryant says there’s even a secret group of ranchers that harbor colonies with as many as 40 monkeys, ensuring their survival buy providing feed and water. Chester Moore, editor of Texas Fish and Game magazine says the survival of the Japanese Snow Monkeys shouldn’t shock anyone. “This is Texas. The Axis deer and Nilgai antelopes, which are both from India, and even the warthogs from Sub-Saharan Africa, these are all nonnative species that escaped exotic game ranches and are thriving in Texas.” The stars at night are big and bright, and there are monkeys in South Texas.
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