43 escaped biolab monkeys continue to elude police
“God knows where they went, right?”
UPDATE: As of Saturday the 9th of November, a single monkey has been safely captured unharmed. Let’s see….escaped and on the loose Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, then one captured Saturday. One caught, every 3 days, means it will only take another 126 days to catch the other 42 currently free ranging monkeys. CEO of the Alpha Genesis facility has stated that the employee who failed to latch the door to the enclosure is on “disciplinary action as of this morning.” Hmmm, a single door between 50 monkeys and freedom. Sounds like the company should be disciplined. With that kind of security they are lucky they haven’t had all their animals released by one of the animal rights groups.
Rhesus macaque monkey stock photo
When the headlines hit social media on Wednesday November 6th, readers were quick to note that this primate escape is exactly how several really frightening movies have begun, including 28 Days Later, and Outbreak. These story lines, which some declare are predictive programming, seem to be foreshadowing future real-world crises.
This real-world event began Wednesday afternoon when 43 juvenile female rhesus monkeys escaped from the Alpha Genesis Primate Research Center in Yemassee, South Carolina.
The research facility conducts biomedical research experiments including clinical trials for brain disease treatments, biomedical research services, diagnostic testing for nonhuman primates and biological products from a variety of “research species.” They also offer primate housing and CDC quarantine, according to the company website.
The 43 monkeys, described as “very young females” are Rhesus macaque primates that were a group that has reportedly never been used for testing. According to a police report the animals were “too young to carry disease.” These are small animals weighing between six and seven pounds. That is the size of my ten-year-old Yorkie…. or an average size newborn human infant.
One Facebook poster declared “Keep running, little ones. The place is a bloody disgrace.”
This group of monkeys escaped from the Alpha Genesis campus in Yemassee, a town of 1000 residents, although they may need to increase the town census if they count these newcomers.
“It was Really Follow-The-Leader”
The Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard reported to WSAV that a worker who was cleaning their enclosure left the door open while it was being serviced and the animals escaped. “It’s really like follow-the-leader,” Westergaard told CBS News. “You see one go and the others go.” “They were in a group of 50 and 7 stayed behind and 43 bolted out the door.”
The Alpha Genesis campus is a huge facility with a number of buildings in addition to many outdoor cage systems for primates. One local resident describes the facility as fully gated and hidden from view to drivers passing by and said, “this is not the first time monkeys have escaped—we have had many other instances.”
One Facebook poster said “Monkey Farm. I’ve been out there. Heck it’s in Yemassee where I was born. Everyone calls it the Monkey Farm down there. Which is an extremely and I mean extremely secure facility. I wonder how they got out. Time to go on a monkey hunt. The Yemassee is 80% woods…and 100% hunters.”
There are no vigilante hunters going after the monkeys. As of the afternoon of November 7th police report that the staff from Alpha Genesis have “eyes on” the animals and were trying to capture them with traps and foods. Some reports indicate apples were being used as bait in the traps.
Police caution local residents to keep their doors and windows locked and to call 911 should any primate be spotted. This warning continues as the weekend arrives; the animals have now been loose in the woods since Wednesday, November 6th.
The Alpha Genesis campus itself is huge and surrounded by woods and swampy forests.
The Alpha Genesis campus in Yemassee, SC
The Alpha Genesis campus is a highly secure biological research facility, founded in 2003 and located at 95 Castle Hall Rd Yemassee, SC, 29945-7115 United States. Pulled up on Google Earth a number of various outdoor wire cages can be spotted along with larger buildings.
Outdoor cages on the main Alpha Genesis campus.
Federal Funding for Alpha Genesis
The company has received a total of $34.6 million since 2017 in Combined amounts. Over $34 million is from NIAID, with the balance coming from the NIH Office of the Director and the National Cancer Institute.
Alpha Genesis Inc. Federal Awards
Although the current escaped monkeys were being housed on the main campus, the company also operates another facility on Morgan Island, off the coast of South Carolina that cares for approximately 5,000 monkeys at any time that are used in clinical research.
Alpha Genesis has had escapes from the primate population in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022 when there were six separate incidents of monkeys opening or escaping their enclosures, and in May of this year along with other humane violations.
We have also documented an extensive number of accidents that occur even in the highest security facilities—the Level 4 biolabs that handle the most dangerous pathogens on Earth. Accidents happen, even in the most dangerous and secure surroundings.
“Cooing at the Monkeys Inside”
On Friday Nov. 8th the monkeys were seen examining the outer fence of the Alpha Genesis compounds and “cooing at the monkeys inside” according to a police statement. “The primates are exhibiting calm and playful behavior, which is a positive indication,” the police statement said, adding company workers are closely watching the monkeys while keeping their distance as they work to safely recapture them.
USA Today has film footage of the monkeys’ escape that shows a line of monkeys sprinting across the ridge of a woods, single file. A voice in the film says, quietly, “God knows where they went, right?” As of Friday night, the animals are still at large. The CEO of Alpha Genesis said they are working to return the animals safely with no other problems. “I think they are having an adventure,” he said, putting the best PR spin possible on a terrible situation.
Another Facebook poster begs to differ declaring “Playfully cooing?? They’re trying to help the other ones escape. There’s nothing playful about this. These poor animals have been tortured and you guys are acting like it’s a preschool.”
The Ebola Outbreak in the Reston Virginia Primate Center
These are not the only primate escapes in the US from secure facilities. In 1989 the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit, located in Reston, Virginia received thousands of monkeys each year who spent 31 days in quarantine there before being moved to their new facilities in around the country. The Hot Zone: The terrifying true story of the origins of the Ebola virus, later recounted this episode in detail.
A shipment of 100 monkeys from a Philippine facility fell ill and within a month one third of the animals had died. The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland found evidence of the most dangerous Ebola strain, Zaire ebolavirus, in the monkey tissue samples from Reston.
All the animals at Reston had to be put down. Humans who fell ill required treatment. The CDC assumed responsibility for the humans while US Army members were to manage and sacrifice the animals. But on the second day of the army operation, a monkey escaped.
Colonel Gerald Jaax, the leader of the Army unit handling the outbreak, later said in a veterinary medical journal interview:
" During the Reston Ebola outbreak, a monkey we suspected of being infected with Ebola virus got out of its cage in the quarantine facility. Several of us spent the better part of a day trying to catch it. When we talk about the Reston incident, we compare the frustration of that day with the Hollywood version in the movie 'Outbreak,' in which an infected monkey was coaxed from a tree and captured within minutes. It is a great example of reality vs. Hollywood.”
Vigilance, Security, Care, and Respect
The South Carolina escape of 43 young female Rhesus monkeys sounds much less dramatic. Although the difficult experience of Colonel Jaax and his unit in how much effort it took to capture one possibly infected primate is instructive in how long it may take to round up this band of young monkeys.
But most of all, we need to require the utmost of vigilance, respect, and care in handling and using animals for human benefit.
If we humans must use God’s animals in medical research to save human lives we must have the greatest security, restraint and respect when we do so. And as those movies and the history of Reston, Virginia warn us, the next escapees may not be so congenial or healthy as these South Carolina monkeys are said to be.
Primary author: Ginger Breggin
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Virus factories. They all need to be closed down. "Research" is a joke, nothing good comes out of these places.
The democrats have probably already registered those monkeys to vote in the next election...