A runaway baboon “and his two wives” have been recaptured by police in Sydney after the trio escaped while being transported to a medical research facility.

“This is not a Mandrill”, police posting on Twitter joked, after concerned members of the public called the emergency services after spotting the fugitive primates in the grounds of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown.

The three baboons apparently engineered their escape from a van while they were being transported on Tuesday.

The male baboon was due to undergo a vasectomy, and the two females “considered his wives”, according to local journalists, had been brought along to help keep him calm during the transportation and procedure.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard told AAP there had been a lock failure either on the truck or on the crate in which a 15-year-old male and two females were being transported, and they had seized their chance for freedom.

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“The three baboons decided to take a bit of a look around RPA grounds,” he said.

“They didn’t know what to do nor did the people around them.”

Mr Hazzard said the baboons were not being transported for research purposes and the male was at the facility for a vasectomy, Australia’s 7News reports.

“If he had been kept fertile he would have had to (have) moved from the family he knows,” Mr Hazzard added.

NSW Police said there was no immediate danger to the public but that people were advised to avoid the area.

The baboons are expected to be awake and well in a few hours, Mr Hazzard said.

He said baboons form part of research programmes which cover a range of health issues but when they are finished with the programme, they are always returned to their colonies.

Former GP and animal activist Kevin Coleman told AAP the primates’ escape was a “major concern” which could raise biosecurity issues.

“If an animal the size of a baboon can escape, how many mice have escaped, how many other animals have escaped?” he said.

Dr Coleman is apparently a spokesperson for Sydney Save Animals in Laboratories and told the news agency he believed experts were undertaking research into human-baboon hybrid organs to address the transplant crisis.

When asked if the baboons were there for the creation of “human-baboon hybrid organs”, Mr Hazzard said it was “rubbish”.