Monkey Island.
Most people don’t know this but there used to an island full of monkeys in City Park. Sea lions, too. This is New Orleans.
The sea lion pool opened in 1958. I am not going to go into the particulars about how this came about. It is New Orleans. Those were different times.
There were three sea lions, one male and two females. The bull was named Bull. The other two were named Itzy and Bitzy.
There was an artificial island created in the middle of the sea lion pool. On it were some trees strung with ropes to entertain the twelve monkeys that lived on the island.
They were macaques, curious and clever little brutes who provides hours of entertainment for children standing on the banks of the sea lion pool.
The sea lions spent a lot of time lazing around, taking an occasional lazy swim around the island. They would sometimes bask on the mainland where people threw them peanuts.
City Park used to be open 24 hours. Nothing ever happened up there at night, except, perhaps, some heavy petting on a park bench. Most of time, the park was empty at night. It wasn’t like the Couterie Forest nowadays.
On July 8, 1965, all twelve monkeys escaped their island onto the mainland. It happened at night so nobody knows what happened.
Mr. S.H. Daigle, who was an attendant at the sea lion pool, speculated that the monkeys trained the sea lions to ferry them over to shore.
“I can see it happen in my mind’s eye, those monkeys piled onto the backs of the sea lions. I can hear them howling with excitement in my mind’s ear.”
Each of the monkeys had names:
Jacko Macacco Chiraco Macacco Whacko Macacco Knacko Macacco Quacko Macacco Smacko Macacco Attacko Macacco Cracko Macacco Slacko Macacco Stacko Macacco Packo Macacco Yakov Macacco Yakov earned the v at the end of his name because his hair always looked like he was wearing a Russian hat.
Monkey Island closed in 1967. There were worries those rascally monkeys would escape again. On the last day, there was a big parade. The circus was in town. The Macaccos were given a new home with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey.