(UPI) Police in a small South Carolina town are warning residents to keep their doors and windows locked after 43 monkeys escaped from a research facility.

The Yemassee Police Department issued an alert on social media confirming that 40 primates had escaped Wednesday night from the Alpha Genesis facility in Beaufort County.

"Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes," the department said. If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them.

Bio-research company Alpha Genesis works with cynomolgous, rhesus and capuchin monkeys.

Police said in a Thursday update that the escaped monkeys were rhesus macaques. The escaped primates were young females that had not been used for any testing, and do not carry any disease, police said.

Alpha Genesis employees "currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food," police wrote.

Alpha Genesis was awarded a federal contract in 2023 to oversee the 3,500 rhesus monkeys living on South Carolina's Morgan Island, which is commonly called "Monkey Island."

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