Monkey calls 911 and gets police to come to the zoo to investigate

A monkey has caused a massive amount of confusion at a California zoo after police rocked up to respond to a 911 emergency call.

Zookeepers, along with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, now believe it was a cheeky monkey named Route that placed the call.

Police dispatchers received a call on June 13, which eventually disconnected.

Dispatchers tried to call and text the number back, but received no response, which led to dispatchers sending a squad car to investigate the call.

Police found themselves at Zoo to You, a zoo in Paso Robles, facing down a group of very confused zookeepers who denied calling them.

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office shared an update of the incident on social media to explain the slightly odd turn of events that followed.

"Deputies were sent to investigate," the social media post reads.

"The address took them to the offices of Zoo to You near Paso Robles. No one there had placed the call."

The post added: "Was someone trying to make us look like a monkey's uncle? [But] then they all realised... it must have been Route the capuchin monkey."

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Yes, you read that correctly.

After a bit of head-scratching, police and zookeepers eventually came to the realisation that the zoo’s Capuchin monkey, named Route, had got her hot little hands on a mobile phone.

The phone had been abandoned in a golf cart somewhere on the 40-acre zoo property, which is where Route had apparently found the phone and began to play with it... and inadvertently called police in the process.

"We’re told capuchin monkeys are very inquisitive and will grab anything and everything and just start pushing buttons," the sheriff’s office said, as per the Mirror.

Doug Miles / Alamy

"And that’s what Route did…just so happened it was in the right combination of numbers to call us."

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office shared several snaps of the adorable yet troublesome primate, who they met after attending the scene.

Police joked that officers from San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office had seen their 'fair share of monkey business but nothing quite like this'.

"As you can tell from these photos, Route is a little embarrassed by the whole thing," the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in their Facebook post.

"But you can't really blame her, after all monkey see, monkey do."

Topics: Animals, US News, Weird

Rachel Lang

Rachel Lang is a Digital Journalist at LADbible. During her career, she has interviewed Aussie PM Malcolm Turnbull in the lead up to the 2016 federal election, ran an editorial campaign on the war in Yemen, and reported on homelessness in the lead-up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding in Windsor. She also once wrote a yarn on the cheese and wine version of Fyre Festival.

@rlangjournalist