Residents of a town in South Carolina have been warned to avoid potentially infectious monkeys after 40 animals escaped from a nearby research facility.
The monkeys somehow made it out of the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, about 60 miles (100km) southwest of Charleston, on Wednesday.
“Traps have been set up around the area, and the Yemassee Police Department is currently on-site utilizing thermal imaging cameras in an attempt to locate the animals,” the police said on Wednesday evening. “Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes.”
Alpha Genesis uses the Yemassee facility to breed monkeys for medical research and testing. The company website says it provides “nonhuman primate products and bio-research services.” The monkeys are then used for clinical trials for a variety of diseases.
It was unclear whether the primates involved in Wednesday’s escape had been test subjects or might carry some contagion. The authorities are therefore urging extreme caution in dealing with the animals. Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call the police, the Yemassee Sheriff’s Department said.
Neither the police nor Alpha Genesis have identified the breeds of escaped primates. The company has worked with rhesus, macaque, and capuchins monkeys.
This is the second mass monkey escape from Alpha Genesis in less than a decade, according to local newspaper the Beaufour Post and Courier. In 2016, a total of 19 monkeys went missing for about six hours before they were rounded up and brought back.
In 2023, Alpha Genesis was contracted by the US government to run ‘Monkey Island’, a monkey colony off the coast of South Carolina that is home to about 3,500 primates.