The adventure has ended. After 79 days, all escaped monkeys from SC facility ‘recaptured’
Nearly three months after 43 monkeys escaped from Alpha Genesis, a research facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, all of the monkeys have been captured, according to an update from the Yemassee Police Department.
The update came after the facility’s CEO, Greg Westergaard, confirmed with the police department that the primates were “safely recaptured” and that the monkeys “appeared to be in good health.”
The adolescent female rhesus macaque monkeys initially escaped from the facility on Castle Hall Road the evening of Nov. 6. During a routine cleaning and feeding, an employee failed to secure two doors behind her, according to Westergaard, which led to the escape. Just days later, more than half of the monkeys had returned to the facility. By Nov. 18, only four monkeys remained on the loose.
When the monkeys first escaped, the facility said that they would leave the monkeys be and wait for them to return on their own. They also deployed “have a heart” traps to try and capture the monkeys humanely, but if they were not caught in those traps and refused to come back on their own, Westergaard said, they would be shot with tranquilizing darts. It is unclear at this time how the remaining monkeys were captured.
Calls made to Westergaard on Friday afternoon were not immediately returned.
Alpha Genesis manages three primate facilities in Lowcountry of South Carolina. There are 4,000 monkeys at its main facility in Yemassee. A second facility is located on 80 acres and is just six miles north of Yemassee off Old Salkehatchie Road in Early Branch. There are 3,000 monkeys within that facility.
The November escape was not the first time monkeys have fled from the facility. In 2014, 26 monkeys escaped from the facility. Nineteen more monkeys escaped in 2016.
Since the escape, the facility has been under scrutiny, both for the escape and alleged mistreatment of the monkeys, which the facility Alpha Genesis denies.
In November, the Animal Care Program of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service said it would look into a whistle blower complaint brought forth by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals about the alleged deaths of more than 20 monkeys as a result of a defective heater.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 2:14 PM.
