South Carolina lab recaptures 5 more escaped monkeys but 13 are still loose

YEMASEE, S.C. (WCSC/AP/Gray News) - Employees at a South Carolina compound that breeds monkeys for medical research have recaptured five more animals that escaped last week from an enclosure that wasn’t fully locked.

As of Monday afternoon, 30 of the 43 monkeys that made it outside the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee are back in the company’s custody unharmed, police said in a statement.

Most if not all of the Rhesus macaques appeared to stay close to the compound after their escape Wednesday and Alpha Genesis employees have been watching them and luring them back with food, officials said.

They cooed at the monkeys remaining inside and interacted with the primates still inside the fence, the company told police.

Veterinarians have been examining the animals that were brought back and initial reports indicate they are all in good health, police said.

Alpha Genesis has said that efforts to recover all the monkeys will continue for as long as it takes at its compound about a mile from downtown Yemassee and about 50 miles northeast of Savannah, Georgia.

The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds.

Humans have been using the monkeys for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that Rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.

Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical facilities and other researchers.

If people encounter the monkeys, they are advised to stay away from them — and to not fly drones in the area.

Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide, according to its website.

The update comes amid word that the facility has received millions of taxpayer dollars in funding, government data shows.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service has awarded Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center more than $19 million in 2024 alone, according to federal government spending data.

The majority of that funding comes from taxpayer dollars.

Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of the nonprofit the White Coast Waste Project, says his group‘s goal is to get the government out of the animal testing business so taxpayer dollars don’t fund these labs.

Alpha Genesis faced violations from the United States Department of Agriculture, including a warning filed in 2022 and a fine in 2017 for violating primate housing, handling and veterinary care.

“It’s incredibly cruel and it’s incredibly wasteful and inefficient, and taxpayers are not getting a good return on investment for animal testing,” Goodman says. “Millions and millions of animals are being tortured and killed in painful experiments, and we’re not getting cures.”

Goodman says they have worked with U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, who introduced a bill this summer to prohibit the National Institutes of Health from conducting or supporting research that causes significant pain or distress to a nonhuman primate, and for other purposes.

Alpha Genesis has not yet responded to a request for comment on the taxpayer funding.