Take a turn at the train station and you’ll come across Annette Youmans’ shop. It’s one of just a handful of businesses in Yemassee, SC, a town that's population is roughly 1,500.
These days, Youmans’ graphics and gift shop is busy with people calling and dropping by, curious about dozens of monkeys that escaped a primate research center two weeks ago.
"I just got a call from the United Kingdom wanting to know how the monkeys are," says Youmans.
Shop employee Cindy Pittinger spotted one of the escapees.
“I had to run an errand the other day and coming back, one ran across the road in front of my car,” she says.
Pittinger says fortunately, the monkey was able to get across safely and darted into the woods. She quickly called police, who urged people to keep their windows and doors shut. They assured the juvenile monkeys, about the size of a cat, are too young to carry disease.
The "monkey farm"
Pittinger wasn’t worried. She grew up in Yemassee, where locals call the primate research center down the street, “the monkey farm”. Besides, she says, monkeys have escaped before, although never this many or for so long.
Youmans remembers a previous escape.
“I think the last one, they caught it at the post office, and he was just sitting there,” Youmans says with a chuckle.
She says all the attention has been good for business. She's even designed, for the first time, a new monkey logo for t-shirts.
“I’ve sent some to California and Tennessee," she says.
Monkeys are business in this rural community. In fact, they outnumber people in Yemassee.
Some 7,000 are housed at two facilities owned by Alpha Genesis. The company also oversees a couple thousand more monkeys on a remote island off the coast of Beaufort.
In Yemassee, police have closed off the facility where 43 monkeys hightailed it Nov. 6th. They’re trying to discourage onlookers as research center officials scour the surrounding forest of tall pines for any sign of a handful of monkeys still on the run. 39 have been recaptured.
At a second facility on the outskirts of town, monkeys are visible behind a roadside fence. Several can be seen in large cages with swings and colorful balls.
Alpha Genesis breeds and sells monkeys to researchers worldwide, getting millions of dollars in federal contracts. The rhesus macaque monkeys that fled are popular with scientists as they were used to develop the polio vaccine.
But their escape has exposed the company to scrutiny as it admits an employee failed to fully shut an enclosure.
“They don’t want to have public scrutiny,” says Michael Budkie who runs a watchdog group out of Ohio called, Stop Animal Exploitation Now.
“They don’t want the public to find out about escapes and traumatic injuries and animals being killed.”
Escapes and alleged violations
Budkie says Alpha Genesis has a history of escapes and violations. He was successful in getting federal investigators to fine the company in 2018, following dozens of escapes over a decade.
Now he’s filed another federal complaint that includes graphic photographs and documents he says were provided by a whistleblower inside Alpha Genesis.
The pictures, taken in 2022, show bloody monkeys who’ve died and others with injuries to their tails and fingers. The documents detail, among other things, the death of a monkey found with its head caught in an enclosure as well as an infant monkey strangled by gauze used to hold a water bottle.
The USDA have previously issued a warning to Alpha Genesis in 2018, after finding issues with the housing and handling of monkeys dating back to 2014.
“This is abhorrent,” says Mace. “There’s just clearly an issue at this facility and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
Mace says the public has a right to know what goes on inside the primate research center because Alpha Genesis does get taxpayer dollars.
What's next?
The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But Yemassee police spokeswoman Cathryn Miller says she is getting updates from its CEO almost daily.
“We try to put out what we know is to be factual and true to quell some of the hysteria,” says Miller.
She says the hysteria is coming from people outside Yemassee, worried about the welfare of so many monkeys. She doesn’t know what to tell them. She has no idea what goes on inside Alpha Genesis. Her concern is public safety.
Back at Youmans’ shop, Pettinger doesn’t expect interest in this escape to linger.
“I think it’s going to fade away,” she says. “The curiosity will be gone, until the next time.”
Animal rights activists insist there can’t be a next time. They say escapes are unsafe for both people, and the primates who share more than 90% of their DNA.
