Forty-three monkeys on the loose after escaping from US research lab

Greg Westergaard, CEO of Alpha Genesis, has said that the escape is “frustrating”.

He told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner network, that he was “hoping for a happy ending” and that the monkeys would return to the facility on their own.

Mr Westergaard said the monkeys had escaped on Wednesday after a keeper left open a door to their outdoor enclosure. He said they were now “hanging out in the woods”.

“It’s really like follow-the-leader. You see one go and the others go,” Mr Westergaard said.

“It was a group of 50 and 7 stayed behind and 43 bolted out the door.”

“There are some little things to eat in the woods but no apples which what they really like, ” he said, “so we are hoping that will draw them in the next day or two”.

Speaking to South Carolina newspaper The Post and Courier, external, he added that capturing the monkeys had been made more difficult due to the weather, saying efforts were “hampered a bit by the rain as the monkeys are hunkered down”.

According to The Post and Courier, this is not the first time that monkeys have escaped from the facility.

In 2016, 19 monkeys escaped before being returned about six hours later. Two years earlier, 26 primates escaped the facility.

The town of Yemassee, 60 miles (100km) east of Charleston, has a population of less than 1,100 resident.

Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who represents South Carolina in the House of Representatives, tweeted that her office is “diligently gathering all relevant information to keep our constituents informed regarding the recent escape of primates”.

Macaques are known for being aggressive and competitive, however, Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said in a news conference on Thursday that “there is almost no danger to the public”.

Earlier this year, a Japanese macaque named Honshu escaped from a zoo in Scotland.

After more than five days on the loose, he was located by a drone and then shot with a tranquiliser dart before being returned to the zoo.