Woman seen breaking into Texas zoo exhibit to feed monkeys arrested, fired by law firm
A woman has been arrested after a viral video shows her climbing into a spider monkey exhibit at the El Paso Zoo and feeding the animals.
The woman filmed trespassing in the exhibit at the zoo was fired by personal injury law firm Lovett Law. Nora Artalejo Lovett, a shareholder at the firm, referred to her behavior as “irresponsible and reckless.”
The video shows the woman, who was not named by the law firm or the zoo, in a fenced-in area of the zoo with two spider monkeys next to her. She appears to attempt to feed the monkeys before walking off through the moat in the enclosure.
She fed the monkeys hot Cheetos, according to the Instagram account that shared the video.
Thursday, the El Paso Police Department said the woman was arrested for trespassing into the monkey enclosure. The police department did not identify her.
The woman was a litigation assistant at the law firm, according to KVIA.
“We support the El Paso Zoo and our thoughts go out to the spider monkeys, Libby and Sunday, and hope that they will recover from this very traumatic experience,” Lovett wrote in a statement.
Joe Montisano, the director of the zoo, called the woman’s actions “stupid” and that she was fortunate the outcomes were not worse for her and the monkeys, the El Paso Times reported.
“These are primates. They are strong; they have canine teeth. They can scratch,” Montisano told the newspaper. “We don’t interact with them on the daily. And we don’t interact with them without a barrier in between us.”
The zoo director said earlier in the week it would press charges because it could not “let this behavior go unpunished.”
Interacting and feeding the monkeys could have disrupted the animals’ specialized diet or put them at risk of catching COVID-19, a zookeeper told KVIA.
“Anything that we have they could get as well so Covid is no different,” zookeeper Mason Kleist said. “We took the necessary steps to prevent them from getting that, so for someone to just go in there and give them food from their hands could just ruin that.”
The zoo plans to modify the fencing to better protect the animals, according to KFOX. The zoo has also increased its security patrol, the El Paso Times reported.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 11:47 AM.