Monkeys escape again from South Carolina breeding farm | Beaufort County News

YEMASSEE – It happened again.

A group of 43 female monkeys escaped from a breeding facility in the Lowcountry with a history of security challenges and breaches. The monkeys escaped around 1 p.m. Nov. 6 from the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center on Castle Hall Road, according to Yemassee police. No one had been reported captured by the following evening.

Alpha Genesis breeds monkeys to sell for medical testing and research. A federal inspection in May found the facility houses 6,701 primates. In 2016, 19 monkeys escaped from Alpha Genesis. The primates were returned home about six hours later.

For the latest jailbreak, the company set traps and is leading recapture efforts, according to Police Chief Gregory Alexander. The police are also helping with the search with thermal cameras. These little primates weigh about 6 pounds, he said.

Police report that the monkeys do not pose a threat or health risk to the public, although they still “strongly advised” residents “to keep doors and windows securely closed to prevent the primates from entering their homes.”

Anyone who encounters the primates should call 911 instead of attempting to capture or contact them.

“Just don’t try to bring these things home or pet them,” Alexander said. “We get a lot of that on our social media. (Taking them) is a crime because they don’t belong to you.”

Heavy rain affected search efforts, Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard said in a text.

“We follow our procedures, which include observation and also enticing have-a-heart traps,” Westergaard said. “Slightly hampered by the rain, as the monkeys have been flung down.”

The young monkeys escaped after a caretaker left two doors unsecured while cleaning their enclosure. The small primates are disease-free and have never been used for testing due to their young age, Westergaard said.

“They’re a little cranky, so we’re keeping our distance and waiting for them to come home,” he said.

In one Facebook postYemassee police said the department is working with “state agriculture and wildlife officials to deal with this incident effectively and humanely.”

Rep. Nancy Mace shared in a post on X that her office is “monitoring the situation.”

Yemassee business owner Charlotte Murray wasn’t too worried about the escaped monkeys.

Murray, who owns the local event venue Lowcountry Living Room, said she is familiar with the monkeys. Her home is close to the Alpha Genesis campus.

“We’ve seen them on the side of the road before. We’ve seen them in trees,” Murray said. “It’s been a long time. I think they’re mostly safe, so we’ve never really worried about them that much, but we’re very comfortable with them being around.”

Past run-ins and controversies

Last year, Alpha Genesis – one of the world’s largest breeders of monkeys for research and medical testing – signed a federal contract to operate a large monkey colony on Morgan Island, located off the islands of Coosaw, Dataw and St. Helena in Beaufort County. Morgan Island, more commonly known as “Monkey Island” to locals, is home to around 3,500 rhesus monkeys. It sits along St. Helena Strait in the ACE Basin.

The monkey keepers have a history of problems securing their primates and other problems at their Yemassee facility, often referred to locally as “the monkey farm.”

During a January 2023 USDA inspection, federal regulators found five non-critical violations at the facility related to proper cleaning, temperature maintenance, sharp edges that could cause injury and moldy food. These problems were fixed within the next month.

As part of an inspection in September 2022, regulators found six incidents of animals escaping their primary enclosures. The primates found weaknesses in the chain link fences or opened panels between the cages. Alpha Genesis responded by repairing the weakened enclosures and removing cages that animals could open.

This was part of a report that prompted the USDA to issue an official warning to Alpha Genesis. The federal government warned that future violations could result in civil penalties, criminal prosecution or other penalties.

The USDA fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 for incidents that occurred between December 2014 and February 2016. Federal government documents cited improperly secured enclosures and dehydration caused by an accidentally closed water main. An animal exploitation watchdog group believed the penalties were not severe enough.

The records highlighted a violation that led to 26 monkeys escaping in December 2014. One monkey was placed in the wrong social group in August 2015 and was killed by other monkeys.

Westergaard previously told The Post and Courier that the company paid the citations in July 2017. He said Alpha Genesis self-reported several of the violations cited by the federal government.

According to the USDA, at least five monkeys died at the facility between 2011 and 2012.

Rhesus monkeys are a favorite among researchers. In the 1960s, they were common test subjects in psychological experiments due to their overestimated resemblance to humans—most notably in University of Wisconsin researcher Harry Harlow’s total isolation and induced depression experiments.

Some monkeys starved to death during the 1960s experiments after being kept in total isolation for three months, while those isolated for longer periods often never recovered from what Harlow called social extinction, his research shows.

More recently, rhesus monkeys have been used as subjects by medical researchers in experiments because of their now better understood resemblance to humans, according to an obituary in the American Journal of Primatology.

The Yemassee facility incident is the second reported primate escape in the Lowcountry this year.

In May, a Japanese macaque named Bradley escaped from his home in Walterboro. After several days of searching, Colleton County Animal Services reported that the monkey had been captured. Two days later, officials revealed the animal was found dead.

John Sturgeon and Tony Kukulich contributed to this report.