There goes the neighborhood! Locals outraged by plan to build 200-hectare ‘mini-city’ of 30,000 MONKEYS for medical research in Georgia

The plan to build a sprawling 200-acre monkey breeding facility in Bainbridge, Georgia hit a snag this week when neighbors pushed back hard against the project.

Local residents of the small Decatur County town, outraged and dismayed by the decision to build such a complex near their homes, pressured their county commissioners to cut ties with Safer Human Medicine, the company behind the planned facility .

In December, the county approved a plan for the startup to build one of the largest monkey farms in the United States, including tax breaks for establishing the facility.

But in response to pressure from the construction community, commissioners voted Tuesday to reverse that deal.

Now the fate of the company is up in the air and the company will have to find a new location for the monkey breeding business.

Safer Human Medicine filed a legal complaint against the local development authority on Thursday, insisting that the authorities adhere to the previous agreement.

Bainbridge has a population of fewer than 15,000 people, but Safer Human Medicine’s proposed facility would house 30,000 long-tailed macaque monkeys in specially equipped warehouses where the company says the monkeys can roam freely and socialize.

Customers would include universities, pharmaceutical companies and colleges that would purchase the animals for medical research.

Monkeys are so similar to humans that many human health problems are studied based on them.

Scientists have used different macaque species to study everything from common diseases like COVID-19 to rare cancers and genetic disorders, as well as more basic research into how the brain and body work.

In an open letter to the local community, Safer Human Medicine explained why the business was opening now:

“In the wake of the pandemic, we have learned the hard way that our US researchers need reliable access to healthy primates to develop and develop the safety of potentially life-saving medicines and therapies for you, your family, your friends and neighbors to evaluate .

“Many of the medications on your medical cabinet today would not exist without this vital medical research, and without these primates, research comes to a standstill.”

But this did not convince some local residents.

“It’s an invasive species and if there were 30,000 of them we would be overrun by monkeys,” said Ted Lee, a local resident. told local news station WALB-TV.

“I don’t think anyone wants 30,000 monkeys next door,” said resident David Barber said.

The company’s open letter assured locals that the monkeys would be safely contained in the facility and that there was no reason to fear they would escape or spread disease to the community.

Local government officials met in December to discuss financial arrangements for the facility, dubbed “Project Liberty.”

At that meeting, members of the Decatur County-Bainbridge Industrial Development Authority, the City Council, the Decatur County Board of Education, the Decatur County Commissioners and the Decatur County Board of Tax Assessors all agreed on a number of financial incentives for the company.

According to the Development Authority, the monkey farm is expected to cost $270 million to $400 million and create about 263 jobs in the area.

The officials’ decision was unanimous: Safer Human Medicine would receive a 100 percent tax credit for its first ten years of operation. After the first decade, this fraction would decrease by 9 percent each year until the company pays 100 percent of its taxes.

But in the time since the December agreement was reached, local residents who heard about the plan have been angry at the prospect of a huge monkey farm in their backyard.

Locals teamed up with the animal rights group PETA and united to pressure their local officials to break the deal.

Residents latched onto zoning as a potential strategy: The project requires agricultural zoning, but Bainbridge has none available. ABC reported.

For now, the project will have to move, a city spokesperson said.

But things will move forward, the company said:

“When the County Commission and Development Authority Board initially voted to approve this project, it was a decision made based on the facts of the project and the benefits it would provide. The facts of this project still stand, and our decision to move forward is in line with that.”

Since the deal was announced, a local real estate agent told ABC that several housing deals had fallen through because potential buyers realized they would be living near a monkey farm.

“Last week, at least four housing contracts were revoked when they learned about the monkey facility. They’re waiting to see what happens,” Elise Boyd said.

Animal rights group The Humane Society has pointed out that several Safer Human Medicine officials have worked for Charles River Laboratories, a company that accused of obtaining endangered long-tailed macaques from the wild in Cambodia.

For its part, the company insists its facility will be humane:

“The animals will be housed in groups so they can interact and play with each other,” the company’s open letter said.

‘We will provide them with toys, foraging opportunities and other forms of enrichment. We will supplement their diet with fresh local produce straight from the surrounding community.”

DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives from Safer Human Medicine and Decatur County, and will update this article when they respond.