It Was a Very Bad Weekend for Monkeys Being Stolen From Zoos, Apparently

"The coincidence is a little difficult to ignore."

Double Monkey Theft

Strange things were certainly afoot this weekend, with zookeepers at two separate American zoos — in different states, no less — announcing incidents of monkey theft, Insider reports.

First, the Dallas Zoo took to Twitter on Monday morning to announce that they'd contacted the city's police after discovering that two of the facility's delightfully-bearded emperor tamarin monkeys went missing — and seemingly not by accident.

"It was clear," the zoo added, "the habitat had been intentionally compromised."

Of course, it's not every day that exotic animals are stolen from a zoo. But sure enough, on the same morning, officials at Broussard, Louisiana's "Zooisiana" park also reported that a number of monkeys had been stolen.

According to a Facebook post, robbers were able to abscond with a full dozen of the zoo's adorable squirrel monkeys on Saturday.

Coincidence?

Zoo industry professionals are understandably suspicious of collusion, as Insider reports. After all, Dallas and Broussard are only a six-hour drive apart.

"The coincidence is a little difficult to ignore," Ed Hansen, the CEO of the American Association of Zoo Keepers, told Insider. "Folks don't wander into zoos and start cutting enclosures apart to either steal animals or see what happens when they get loose."

"That takes a pretty strange mind," he added, also warning that without proper care, the stolen monkeys will likely "get sick and die."

Unusual Zoo Activity

Strangely enough, the Dallas Zoo's case of the missing tamarins comes on the heels of a string of bizarre, animal-related incidents at the same facility.

On January 13, Insider reported that a clouded leopard had escaped from its enclosure, which apparently had a "suspicious tear" in it. And then, just ten days later, the same zoo announced that one of its endangered vultures had died under "unusual circumstances" that did "not appear to be from natural causes."

It's hard what to make of the highly unusual string of incidents, or whether they have any kind of connection to the two nearly simultaneous monkey heists. Were the latter stolen with the intent of being sold off?

In any case, we hope the innocent monkeys are soon recovered — and that the Dallas Zoo bulks up its security.

READ MORE: Mystery at the Dallas Zoo: 2 monkeys are missing, believed to have been taken, following a leopard escape, a dead vulture, and 'suspicious' rips in enclosures [Insider]