LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Four monkeys are still on the loose in South Carolina two weeks after more than 40 of them escaped a research facility. Their disappearance has drawn a lot of attention. Many who live in the community aren't too concerned. Animal rights activists are. South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hansen reports from the town of Yemassee in the southeastern part of the state.
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VICTORIA HANSEN, BYLINE: Take a turn at the train station, and you'll come across Annette Youman's shop. It's just one of a handful of businesses in Yemassee, population 1,500. These days, Youman's graphics and gift shop is especially busy with people calling and dropping by curious about the monkeys, including this customer.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You saw one. Where was it?
HANSEN: Shop employee Cindy Pittinger saw one of the escapees.
CINDY PITTINGER: I had to run an errand the other day, and coming back, one ran across the road.
HANSEN: She says, fortunately, the monkey crossed safely, and she called police. They urge people to keep their windows and doors shut. Pittinger wasn't worried. She grew up in Yemassee, where locals call the primate research center down the street the monkey farm. She says monkeys have escaped before, although never this many or for so long. Shop owner Youman remembers a previous escape.
ANNETTE YOUMAN: I think the last one, they caught it at the post office, and he was just sitting there (laughter).
HANSEN: 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. From the road, we saw monkeys in cages behind a fence. Alpha Genesis also oversees a couple thousand more monkeys on a remote island off the coast. The company breeds and sells monkeys to researchers worldwide, getting millions in federal contracts. Now the escape of 43 monkeys has exposed it to scrutiny. As the company admits, an employee failed to shut an enclosure. Animal rights activist Michael Budkie says Alpha Genesis has a history of escapes and violations.
MICHAEL BUDKIE: They don't want public finding out about escapes and traumatic injuries and animals being killed.
HANSEN: Budkie runs the group Stop Animal Exploitation Now. He was successful in getting federal regulators to fine the company in 2018, following dozens of escapes over a decade. In 2022, federal inspectors issued a warning, citing, among other things, monkeys dying with their fingers trapped in cages. Budkie wants an immediate inspection of Alpha Genesis. So does Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
NANCY MACE: This is abhorrent. There's just clearly an issue at this facility, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it.
HANSEN: Mace says the public has the right to know because Alpha Genesis does get taxpayer dollars. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Yemassee police spokeswoman Cathryn Miller says she is getting updates from them almost daily.
CATHRYN MILLER: We try and put out what we know is to be factual and true to quell some of the hysteria to a certain degree.
HANSEN: Miller says the hysteria is coming from people outside Yemassee worried about the welfare of so many monkeys. Back at Youman's shop, Cindy Pittinger doesn't expect interest in this escape to linger.
PITTINGER: I think it's going to fade away. The curiosity will be going, yeah, until the next time.
HANSEN: 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.
For NPR News, I'm Victoria Hansen in Yemassee, South Carolina.
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