Two other monkeys who escaped last week from a South Carolina research center were captured Tuesday, according to the center’s CEO, bringing the total number of primates captured and released to 32 since the incident. Eleven monkeys are still at large.
Greg Westergaard, general manager of the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, told CBS News that the two newly trapped monkeys were healthy and enjoying a meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. . Fruit Loops were also “planned for dessert,” Westergaard said.
He didn’t add any of the monkeys, rhesus macaque primates used for biomedical studies, showed signs of the “adverse effects of their adventure” and all continued to “do well.”
But Westergaard’s company has faced scrutiny from a federal lawmaker who criticized the lab for negligence and alleged the lab had been performing harmful experiments on monkeys for years. Rep. Nancy Mace, whose South Carolina jurisdiction includes Yemassee, wrote a letter to animal welfare officials at the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, raising concerns about the center’s operations research in light of the monkeys’ escape.
“We write to you with urgent concerns regarding federal oversight of Alpha Genesis, a company that operates a non-human primate breeding and testing laboratory located in my congressional district,” Mace wrote in the letter. She said the lab received $19 million in federal funding this year “to breed, confine and experiment on primates at its South Carolina facility.”
Mace said records show primates are subjected to “painful and deadly experiences.”
“While in the care of Alpha Genesis, monkeys died of cold, dehydration, and were killed by other primates in distress,” Mace wrote in the letter, while requesting a briefing on the situation.
Mace pointed out that the monkeys have already escaped of Alpha Genesis, and said federal inspectors cited the company for violations of the Animal Welfare Act as recently as September 2022. CBS News asked Alpha Genesis to respond to Mace’s allegations.
An investigation by CBS affiliate WTOC found that in 2022, Alpha Genesis received eight violations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including a lodging facility violation and a veterinary violation.
The report reveals that in the first eight months of 2022, six monkeys were placed in incorrect enclosures: one animal was found dead due to “trauma caused by resident animals in the enclosure” and four animals required further veterinary care.
On Wednesday, 43 monkeys held at the Yemassee, South Carolina, research center broke loose from their enclosure after a keeper accidentally failed to secure the door, Westergaard told CBS News. Of the 50 primates inside, only seven stayed put while the rest of the group roamed freely just outside the facility.
Westergaard compared the situation to “a playground situation” and said that at the time the animals were “just clumsy monkeys jumping back and forth playing with each other.” Attempts to bait the creatures initially failed and local police warned residents in the area to secure the doors and windows of their homes to prevent the fleeing primates from entering.
While 11 of the monkeys remain on the loose, Westergaard said Tuesday that recovery teams believe they have developed strong leads to find the runaways.
“Late in the afternoon, we spotted a few more monkeys near the traps and heard others cooing in the forest,” he told CBS News. “We will return to this before dawn tomorrow and continue for as long as it takes. We appreciate the continued support from the community, as well as the general public.”
