Residents of this small, unassuming South Carolina town can’t believe it has become one of the most talked about places in America in recent days.
Yemassee attracted national attention last week when 43 rhesus macaque monkeys escaped from a research facility known to locals as the “monkey farm.”
The escape prompted a police warning to the city’s 1,000 residents to lock 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 although we didn’t come across any, we could hear them. cooing, growling, and whispering in the woods near the Alpha Genesis facility they escaped from.
Residents told us they were initially “nervous” upon hearing about the leak, especially considering the risk they could get sick.
But now that the monkeys have been deemed harmless, many are embracing the city’s newfound fame.
“Mom, the Daily Mail is interviewing me and I have the New York Times on the phone,” said one local, completely amazed that the news was making national headlines.
“This place is clearly in the middle of nowhere,” another added, “so having all this press… has been… really something.” Our taxi driver was equally flabbergasted: ‘Oh wow! DailyMail – I’ll have to tell my wife you were in town, I read them all the time!’
The sleepy town has just three stores on its main street, one of which has started selling $20 T-shirts that say “straight from Yemassee” and depict a monkey.
Luke Andrews, pictured wearing a ‘Straight outta Yemassee’ t-shirt being sold in the city as he cashes in on his newfound fame.
The store has already received hundreds of orders, some from as far away as Florida, California and Tennessee.
Annette Youmans, who runs Carolina Graphics, said she was nervous about the monkeys at first.
“The first day I was there, I pulled up my car, ran in and locked the doors because they told me to lock them, so I was a little nervous.
“But after that I’m fine, you see the doors are open and all that.”
She added: ‘On Saturday, there were so many people who came to see the monkeys, and they stopped (at my shop) too!
“It’s great to have something different (to focus on) besides the election.”
The townspeople have become accustomed to leaks (there were six in 2022 alone), but last week’s was the largest, which initially caused some alarm.
Charlotte Murray, who runs a local business, said: “Forty-three escapes was a number we hadn’t heard of before, that was a lot of monkeys.”
Luke looks for monkeys in the forest near the research lab.
The sleepy town has just three stores on its main street, one of which has started selling $20 monkey T-shirts.
“It was also unusual that we were asked to close doors and windows.”
But residents were assured that the small monkeys, which are about the size of a house cat, were not dangerous and were not being used in experiments.
And within a few days, “cars were stopping and people were trying to take pictures (with the monkeys),” Ms. Murray said.
Yemassee is about 50 miles west of Charleston and the same distance north of Savannah.
According to locals, the only people who pass through there are truckers and tourists traveling between those cities.
DailyMail.com was denied entry to the premises (pictured) but we could hear what we believe were the escaped monkeys calling to others still in their enclosures.
The facility, which houses more than 3,000 monkeys, is located on the outskirts of the city.
The rhesus macaques that escaped from the facility are all young females, weighing about six or seven pounds, about the same size as a house cat. The macaque in the photo is an adult from India, not from the Alpha Genesis facility.
But police say they were inundated with visitors over the weekend, with people stopping on the road outside the research center to take photographs.
DailyMail.com was denied entry to the premises, but we could hear what we believe were the escaped monkeys calling to others still in their enclosures.
The police also threatened us if we tried to enter the forest.
The troop of fleeing primates have been holed up there since they escaped and officials are using food and traps to try to recapture them.
Alpha Genesis has about 3,000 primates at its Yemassee site at any one time, where they are used to test vaccines and brain treatments.
Locals recount cases in which one monkey appeared at the post office and another was seen climbing through trees on a street with a baby on its back after escaping in previous years.
In another case, a local business owner told DailyMail.com how a monkey with a “soft ball-sized tumor on its neck” climbed into his store’s air conditioning unit.