A town in South Carolina remains on lockdown as officials attempt to catch the remaining monkeys that escaped from a testing facility last week.
The weekend proved significant for the capture efforts, with 25 of the 43 rhesus macaque monkeys that made a break from the Alpha Genesis research facility last Wednesday being taken back to their enclosure.
However, police in Yemassee said in a Facebook post that they are still working to bring back the 18 that remain at large.
The Facebook post, quoting Greg Westergaard, chief executive of Alpha Genesis, said the “recovery process is slow, but the team is committed to taking as much time as necessary to safely recover all remaining animals.”
Police said a “sizable group” of the missing monkeys are accounted for and can be seen making themselves at home in the trees along the property’s fence line. In an earlier update, they confirmed the animals were “jumping back and forth over the facility’s fence” and that staff and management were on-site to help keep the animals fed.
They also said veterinarians have visited the site and “initial reports from the veterinary team indicate that all recovered animals are in good health.”
Last week, Yemassee residents, who live almost 100 kilometres west of Charleston, were warned to lock their doors and secure their windows to prevent the monkeys from getting inside their homes.
The primates, all “very young” females weighing approximately six or seven pounds, have never been used for testing and police said they confirmed with Alpha Genesis that the animals are too young to carry disease.
Yemassee Town Administrator Matthew Garnes confirmed last week that the fugitive monkeys escaped when a new employee at the Alpha Genesis centre left the door to their enclosure open.
In an interview with CBS News last week, Westergaard called the escape “frustrating.”
“It’s really like follow the leader. You see one go and the others go,” Westergaard said. “It was a group of 50 and seven stayed behind and 43 bolted out the door.”
Alpha Genesis, according to its website, breeds monkeys and primates and provides “nonhuman primate products and bio-research services,” including plasma, serum, tissue samples and whole blood.
Local newspaper Post and Courier reported that monkeys have gone missing from the facility before — eight years ago, 19 primates made a break for it, but all were recaptured within six hours.