In January of 2023 we went to Silver Springs. Silver Springs is up by Juniper Springs near Ocala. They have boat tours, kayaks, and canoes but you cannot swim in this spring due to the wildlife. There were lots of alligators, manatees, and monkeys bruh. The kids had been saying bruh a lot around this time and Silver Springs has hundreds of invasive Rhesus macaque monkeys, which in the 1800's were called "bruh".
We paddled a long way up the river. We saw alligators, turkeys, and manatees. We were at the point where some of us wanted to turn back but I kept pushing. No one thought we would find the monkeys.
Manatee
Another manatee
And then we found them....
There were dozens of them. We sat right off-shore but they came over to the shore like they wanted to get in the canoe and get our food. We had to back off to the middle of the river. At that point I saw one fall from at least 40 feet in a tree. It was about 75 yards away from us in the forest but I saw a splash so I'm guessing it jumped in a pool of water.
There are a lot of people that lack common sense and don't respect nature and get attacked by these monkeys. So while they're cool to check out, you definitely need to keep your distance. They are far more aggressive to people in kayaks and canoes than the alligators are.
One of the happy alligators we saw.
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