Terrified locals first feared escaped lab monkeys could have diseases – but they brought another plague to town
Residents in this tiny, unassuming town South Carolina can’t believe it has become one of the most talked about places in America in recent days.
Yemassee drew national attention last week when 43 rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from a research facility known to locals as the ‘monkey farm’.
The break-out prompted a police warning for the town’s 1,000 inhabitants to lock down their homes and call 911 if they encountered the primates.
When DailyMail.com visited Yemassee on Tuesday there were still 13 monkeys on the loose and while we didn’t run into any, we could hear them cooing, grunting and rustling around in the woods near the Alpha Genesis facility where they escaped.
Residents told us that they were initially ‘nervous’ upon hearing about the escape, especially given the risk they could be diseased.
But now that the monkeys have been deemed harmless, many are now embracing the town’s newfound fame.
‘Mom, I’m being interviewed by Daily Mail and I’ve got the New York Times on the phone,’ said one local, utterly amazed the news was making national headlines.
‘This place is certifiably in the middle of nowhere,’ another added, ‘so to have all this press… has been… really something.’ Our taxi driver was equally stunned: ‘Oh wow! DailyMail – I’ll have to tell my wife you were in town, I read you guys all the time!’
The quiet town boasts just three shops on its Main Street, one of which has begun selling $20 t-shirts that say ‘straight outta Yemassee’ and picture a monkey.
Luke Andrews, pictured wearing a ‘Straight outta Yemassee’ shirt being sold in the town as it cashes in on its newfound fame
The store has already received hundreds of orders, with some from as far away as Florida, California and Tennessee.
Annette Youmans, who runs Carolina Graphics, said she was initially nervous about the monkeys.
‘The first day I was, I pulled my car up right up close and ran in and shut the doors because they said to shut them – so I was a little nervous.
‘But after that I’m fine now, you see the doors are open and all this.’
She added: ‘On Saturday, there were so many people just come to see the monkeys – and they’d stop [at my shop] too!
‘It’s great to have something different [to focus on] from the election.’
The townspeople have become accustomed to escapes – there were six in 2022 alone – but last week’s was the biggest, which initially caused some alarm.
Charlotte Murray, who runs a local business, said: ‘Forty-three escapes was a number that we had not heard before, that was a lot of monkeys.
Luke hunts for the monkeys in the woodland near the research lab
The quiet town boasts just three shops on its Main Street, one of which has begun selling $20 monkey t-shirts
‘It was also unusual that we were asked to lock our doors and windows.’
But residents were assured that the small monkeys – which are around the size of a house cat – were not dangerous and were not used in experiments.
And within days ‘cars were stopping and people were trying to take pictures [with the monkeys],’ said Ms Murray.
Yemassee is about 50 miles west of Charleston and an equal distance north of Savannah.
According to locals, the only people who pass through are truckers and tourists traveling between those cities.
DailyMail.com was denied entry to the facility (shown) but we could hear what we believe were the escapee monkeys calling to others still in their enclosures
The facility, which houses more than 3,000 monkeys, is based on the edge of the town
The rhesus macaques that escaped from the facility are all juvenile females, weighing about six or seven pounds, roughly the same size as a house cat. The macaque pictured is an adult in India, not from the Alpha Genesis facility
But police say they have been inundated with visitors over the weekend, with people stopping by the road outside the research facility to take photographs.
DailyMail.com was denied entry to the facility but we could hear what we believe were the escapee monkeys calling to others still in their enclosures.
We were also threatened by police if we tried to enter the woods.
The troop of on-the-run primates have been hunkered down in there since they escaped and officials are using food and traps to try recapture them.
Alpha Genesis has around 3,000 primates in its Yemassee site at any one time, where they’re used for testing for vaccines and brain treatments.
Locals tell of cases where a monkey turned up in the post office, and when another was seen clambering through the trees by a street with a baby on its back after escaping in previous years.
In another case, one local business owner told DailyMail.com how a monkey with a ‘soft-ball sized tumor on its neck’ climbed onto their shop’s AC unit.
