23 hours Ago
When 43 monkeys escaped from a South Carolina research facility on Nov. 6, countless human cousins around the country cheered them on. No one likes to think about the 70,000 monkeys per year that wind up in U.
S. research laboratories for drug and other experiments. Thus, when the 43 young female rhesus macaque primates managed to escape their captors this month, animal lovers enjoyed a shared moment of rare grace.
All we needed was Morgan Freeman's "God" voice reporting the primates' progress among the Lowcountry's expansive treetops. Alas, such hopes were quickly dashed. All but four of the monkeys have been captured and returned to their unnatural habitat at Alpha Genesis Inc.
's (AGI) research and reproduction facility in Yemassee, S.C. .
Apparently, someone who worked at the farm failed to properly secure an enclosure, allowing the female monkeys to launch an escapade that for two weeks largely entertained the 1,000 or so human primates who call Yemassee home. AGI, by comparison, houses about 10,000 primates on about 100 acres. What could go wrong? People are also reading.
.. During their two-week caper, the monkeys were seen around town, though most stayed relatively close to their known food source.
Residents were warned to keep windows and doors closed and not to feed or interact with the cuddly looking scamps. These particular monkeys are curious, playful and pose no harm to people, according to AGI. The company also said the monkeys were too young to have communicable diseases, which one animal welfare activist called "misinformation.
" While monkeys are reputed to be a barrel of laughs, the 43 fugitives proved adept at opening a can of worms. Their escape brought unwanted attention to AGI by reminding animal-welfare groups of the less-than-luxurious confines at the research facility. AGI has been fined for mishandling animals in the past.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.
, a dedicated animal-welfare advocate, has promised to uncover what happened. At her disposal are AGI internal documents cataloguing "incidents" at the research center that were leaked to Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an animal-rights group, by a whistleblower. SAEN executive director Michael Budkie filed a formal complaint including internal emails and reports on Monday to a deputy administrator at the USDA in charge of animal care.
In an email dated Aug. 18, 2022, Christopher Brown, a doctor at AGI, reported he had observed moldy food in two enclosures and no food in a third. In Building 7, he wrote, "A vast majority of cages had minimal or no food whatsoever.
" Four monkeys had suffered severe weight loss. Several attempts to contact AGI for comment went unanswered. Greg Westergaard, AGI's chief executive, issued a statement in response to the complaint, noting that in a facility with thousands of monkeys, "adverse incidents do occur in isolation and .
.. are promptly reported to the proper regulatory agencies.
" AGI culls monkeys as demand dictates and delivers them to pharmaceutical lab researchers and academic institutions around the world. With demand greater than supplies these days, it would seem imperative that alternative research measures be pursued with greater urgency. Economic considerations aside, sparing monkeys, dogs and other animals from the tortures of experimentation would be good for the human soul.
To this end, Congress two years ago passed legislation to end the mandatory use of animals in research . Apparently, the Food and Drug Administration failed to implement or enforce the new law, so Mace and one of her Republican colleagues from Georgia, Rep. Buddy Carter, are co-sponsoring another bill which is basically a directive for FDA to do what it was told to do.
This monkey business is no joke. If 43 monkeys descended upon my town, I think I'd pay attention to what they were trying to say. But that's just me.
For the record, I'm still pulling for the missing four — respect — and hope they've found a nice Lowcountry plantation to colonize. Kathleen Parker writes for The Washington Post. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
