AR-News: (US SC) Monkeys can stay at island home

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

The State
Sat, Jun. 19, 2004


By SAMMY FRETWELL

Staff Writer


Monkeys can stay at island home
Monkeys that roam a lush island near Beaufort won’t have to leave anytime 
soon.
A state agency chose Friday to let the animals stay on Morgan Island for at 
least two years because they produce income for South Carolina and are 
important to biomedical research nationally.
The fate of the furry primates has been clouded since the S.C. Department of 
Natural Resources bought Morgan Island in 2002 for $20.5 million.
Agency officials had to decide whether they should round up the monkeys so 
the animals would not damage the nearly pristine environment of Morgan Island.
Rhesus monkeys are native to Asia, but they have been kept and bred on the 
400-acre island for use in medical experiments since 1979.
The island, like others near Beaufort, is filled with live oak trees and 
palmettos and is bordered by salt marsh. Song birds and increasingly rare shore 
birds, such as the oyster catcher, are found in the area.
But the DNR hasn’t seen any evidence monkeys are wrecking maritime forests 
that attract birds to Morgan Island, according to an agency management plan. And 
DNR director John Frampton said the federal medical research program depended 
heavily on Morgan Island as a supplier of monkeys. The island is the country’
s only free-range breeding colony for rhesus monkeys, the agency says.
“This is one of the best populations of monkeys anywhere for medical purposes,
’’ Frampton said.
“I have difficulty .... recommending those monkeys be taken off when there’s 
not another place to put them.’’
full story:
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/8961941.htm 


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