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

YEMASSEE – It happened again.

A group of 43 female monkeys escaped from a breeding facility in the Lowcountry where safety problems and violations continued. According to Yemassee police, the monkeys escaped from the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center on Castle Hall Road around 1 p.m. on Nov. 6. No one was reported captured until the following evening.

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

For the latest jailbreak, the company set up traps and is leading the recapture effort, according to Police Chief Gregory Alexander. The police also supported the search with thermal imaging cameras. These small primates weigh about 6 pounds, he said.

Police report that the monkeys pose no 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 homes.”

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

“Just don’t try to take these things home or pet them,” Alexander said. “We get a lot of it on our social media. (Taking them) is a crime because they are not yours.”

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

“We follow our procedures, which include observing and also luring heart traps,” Westergaard said. “A little hampered by the rain as the monkeys huddle together.”

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 because of their young age, Westergaard said.

“They’re a little shy, so we keep our distance and wait for them to come home,” he said.

In a Facebook post, Yemassee police said the department was working with “state agriculture and wildlife officials to effectively and humanely manage this incident.”

Rep. Nancy Mace said 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, owner of local venue Lowcountry Living Room, said she knows the monkeys. Her home is close to the Alpha Genesis campus.

“We’ve seen them on the side of the road before. We saw them in trees,” Murray said. “It's been a long time. I think they’re safe for the most part, so we’ve never really been too worried about them, but we’re very familiar with them being around.”

Past escapes and controversies

Last year, Alpha Genesis — one of the world's largest monkey breeders for research and medical testing — signed a federal contract to operate a large monkey colony on Morgan Island, off Coosaw, Dataw and St. Helena islands in Beaufort County. Morgan Island, better known to locals as “Monkey Island,” is home to about 3,500 rhesus monkeys. It lies on St. Helena Sound in the ACE Basin.

Monkey keepers have had issues with securing their primates and other problems in the past at their Yemassee facility, often referred to locally as a “monkey farm.”

During a January 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection, federal regulators found five non-critical violations at the facility related to proper cleaning, maintaining temperature, sharp edges that could cause injury and moldy food. These issues were resolved the next month.

During an inspection in September 2022, regulators found six incidents in which animals escaped from their main enclosures. The primates found weak points in the chain-link fences or opened panels between the cages. Alpha Genesis responded by repairing the weakened enclosures and eliminating 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 sanctions.

The USDA fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 for incidents that occurred between December 2014 and February 2016. Federal government documents mentioned improperly secured enclosures and dehydration caused by an accidentally closed water pipe. An animal welfare organization believed the punishments were not severe enough.

The records highlighted a breach that led to the escape of 26 monkeys in December 2014. A monkey was placed in the wrong social group in August 2015 and killed by other monkeys.

Westergaard previously told The Post and Courier that the company paid the subpoenas 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 popular among researchers. In the 1960s, their overestimated similarity to humans made them frequent subjects in psychological experiments – most notably in the total isolation and induced depression experiments of University of Wisconsin scientist Harry Harlow.

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

According to an obituary in the American Journal of Primatology, rhesus macaques have recently been used by medical researchers as test subjects in experiments as their similarity to humans has become better understood.

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

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

John Sturgeon and Tony Kukulich contributed to this report.