4 baboons at Texas research centre back after brief escape

SAN ANTONIO – Four baboons are back in an enclosure after escaping briefly from a San Antonio medical research centre.

Officials at the Southwest National Primate Research Center, which is part of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, say three of the baboons were captured within about 30 minutes Saturday after they managed to get out of their enclosure and beyond a perimeter fence. A fourth animal also was accounted for later.

The centre has about 2,900 nonhuman primates — 1,100 of them baboons — used in research on chronic and infectious diseases.

The institute, in a statement, says the immediate concern was for the safety of the animals, the centre’s personnel and residents in the surrounding area. It’s not been disclosed how the baboons got out.