Close your doors and windows. Call 911 if you see a monkey.
That’s the advice police gave residents of Yemassee, South Carolina, on Wednesday. Alpha Genesis is a medical research facility in the area. Forty-three of its female rhesus macaque monkeys escaped.
A new caretaker cleaned the monkeys’ living space and fed them on Wednesday. But she forgot to latch the double doors behind her. Out of a group of 50 total primates, 43 bolted from the enclosure.
Greg Westergaard is the CEO of Alpha Genesis. He told CBS News it was like an all-too-literal version of monkey see, monkey do. “It’s really like follow-the-leader. You see one go and the others go,” he says.
Members of the public can rest easy. Yemassee’s chief of police, Gregory Alexanders, says the monkeys are not likely to be aggressive. Each weighs less than 10 pounds. The plucky primates have never been used for testing due to their young age. They do not carry any infectious diseases that could pose a threat to humans.
How do you catch monkeys on the lam? You entice them with treats. Officials set out traps with fresh fruit and vegetables. The tactic usually works. The monkeys struggle to find food in the wild.
David Paul Murray is a town council member. He told The New York Times most locals are unfazed by the latest monkey business. This is not the first time animals have escaped the compound.
Alpha Genesis sits on about 100 acres. It houses about 7,000 monkeys for scientific research. In 2014, 26 macaques escaped and were recaptured within two days. The next year, two macaques broke out of their outdoor chain-link living space. In 2016, 19 monkeys scaled the 12-foot walls of their quarters.
The Department of Agriculture fined the company more than $12,000 in 2017. Part of the reason for the fine was failure to contain the animals.
Locals take the situation in stride. The monkeys aren’t driving them bananas. Mr. Murray says, “We’re not strangers to seeing monkeys randomly. It’s something you don’t really think about until one runs across the road and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’”
Mr. Westergaard says many townspeople who think they have seen a monkey have actually seen a squirrel.
