Alpha Genesis, the company who leased the colony for biomedical research and testing at the time, could offer no explanation for how the animal made its way off the island. The 20-pound male was first noticed missing over a week earlier. According to the report, a monkey was captured in the backyard of a home on Lady’s Island, a few miles from where it was supposed to be. At least one primate managed an escape from Monkey Island. I think a few years back somebody went over there, and one got on the boat and left with them, but that’s about the only monkey that’s ever gotten away from the island.”Ī 2005 story from the Associated Press backs up his claim. “Unless they do some powerful swimming, they don’t get away. “From what I understand they raise for medicine, science, and all that,” he says, explaining that all the locals know about Monkey Island, but no one is really worried about the animals. This moment is at once both very mundane and very bizarre, like discussing the weather with a minotaur. His chocolate Lab roots around for moles as he tells me what he knows about the neighboring primate population. For a few of those years, he says his neighbor was a primate veterinarian who made regular visits to the island.
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He prefers not to give me his name, but he says he’s lived in the area since 1963. The first person I meet is a salty, older gentleman. Are you from around here?” before trying to hustle a ride to the nearby island populated with thousands of free-range Rhesus monkeys. During each encounter, I open with, “Excuse me, sir.
![south carolina monkey island south carolina monkey island](https://explorebeaufortsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/morganislandmonkeyslynnlong2.jpg)
It’s a sleepy little spot, just a small parking lot and a short walking path that wrap around Jenkins Creek. Sitting on a small stretch of dock at the Eddings Point Boat Landing in Beaufort, I’m spending a warm Sunday afternoon approaching boaters as they prepare to push off. It’s beginning to look like I’ll never make it to Monkey Island.