The recent escape of several research monkeys after the truck carrying them overturned on a Mississippi interstate is the latest glimpse into the secretive industry of animal research and the processes that allow key details of what happened to be kept from the public.
Three monkeys have remained on the loose since the crash on Tuesday in a rural area along Interstate 59, spilling wooden crates labeled “live monkeys” into the tall grass near the highway. Since then, searchers in masks, face shields and other protective equipment have scoured nearby fields and woods for the missing primates. Five of the 21 Rhesus macaques on board were killed during the search, according to the local sheriff, but it was unclear how that happened.
Mississippi authorities have not disclosed the company involved in transporting the monkeys, where the monkeys were headed or who owns them. While Tulane University in New Orleans has acknowledged that the monkeys had been housed at its National Biomedical Research Center in Covington, Louisiana, it said it doesn't own them and won't identify who does.
An initial report from the sheriff described the monkeys as “aggressive” and carrying diseases such as herpes, adding to the confusion. Tulane later said the monkeys were free of pathogens, but it is still unclear what kind of research the monkeys were used for.
The questions surrounding the Mississippi crash and the mystery of why the animals were traveling through the South are remarkable, animal advocates say.
“When a truck carrying 21 monkeys crashes on a public highway, the community has a right to know who owned those animals, where they were being sent, and what diseases they may have been exposed to and harbored simply by being caught up in the primate experimentation industry,” said Lisa Jones-Engel, senior science adviser on primate experimentation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“It is highly unusual — and deeply troubling — that Tulane refuses to identify its partner in this shipment,” Jones-Engel added.
One thing that is known is that the 2025 Chevrolet Silverado pickup hauling the monkeys was driven by a 54-year-old Cascade, Maryland, man when it ran off the highway into the grassy median area, the Mississippi Highway Patrol said in a statement to The Associated Press. The driver wasn’t hurt, nor was his passenger, a 34-year-old resident of Thurmont, Maryland.
Transporting research animals typically requires legally binding contracts that prohibit the parties involved from disclosing information, Tulane University said in a statement to the AP. That's done for the safety of the animals and to protect proprietary information, the New Orleans-based university said.
“To the best of Tulane’s knowledge, the 13 recovered animals remain in the possession of their owner and are en route to their original destination,” the statement said.
The crash has drawn a range of reactions — from conspiracy theories that suggest a government plot to sicken people to serious responses from people who oppose experimenting on animals.
“How incredibly sad and wrong,” Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of the crash.
“I’ve never met a taxpayer that wants their hard-earned dollars paying for animal abuse nor who supports it,” the Georgia congresswoman said in a post on the social platform X. “This needs to end!"
Tulane's Covington center has received $35 million annually in National Institutes of Health support, and its partners include nearly 500 investigators from more than 155 institutions globally, the school said in an Oct. 9 news release. The center has been funded by NIH since 1964, and federal grants have been a significant source of income for the institution, it said.
In July, some of the research center’s 350 employees held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of a new 10,000-square-foot office building and a new laboratory at the facility. This fall, the facility's name was changed from the Tulane National Primate Research Center to the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center to reflect its broader mission, university officials announced.
The Mississippi crash is one of at least three major monkey escapes in the U.S. over the past four years.
Last November, 43 Rhesus macaques escaped from a South Carolina compound that breeds them for medical research after an enclosure wasn't fully locked. Employees from the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee, South Carolina, set up traps to capture them. However, some spent two months that winter living in the woods and weathering a rare snowstorm. By late January, the last four escapees were recaptured after being lured back into captivity by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
In January 2022, several cynomolgus macaque monkeys escaped when a truck towing a trailer of about 100 of the animals collided with a dump truck on a Pennsylvania highway, authorities said. The monkeys were headed to a quarantine facility in an undisclosed location after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on a flight from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation, authorities said. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all of the animals were accounted for within about a day, though three were euthanized for undisclosed reasons.
People wearing protective clothing search along a highway in Heidelberg, Miss., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, near the site of a truck which overturned Tuesday, that was carrying research monkeys. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)
DALLAS (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that the Global Entry program would be shut down as long as the partial government shutdown remains in effect.
The announcement comes after the department said Saturday night that it planned to shut down both Global Entry and the Transportation Security Administration's PreCheck program as well, but DHS cancelled the PreCheck closure.
“ As staffing constraints arise, TSA will evaluate on a case-by-case basis and adjust operations accordingly,” the agency said.
The turmoil at security and customs lanes is tied to a partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14 after Democrats and the White House were unable to reach a deal on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats have been demanding changes to immigration operations that are core to President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign.
The security disruptions come at a time where a major winter storm will hit the East Coast from Sunday into Monday. Nine out of 10 flights going out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Boston Logan Airport have been canceled for Monday.
Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection program that allows pre-approved, low-risk travelers to use expedited kiosks when entering the United States from abroad. There's no specific government data that shows how much time passengers save at airports or other ports of entry from Global Entry but travel industry experts estimate that Global Entry cuts the amount of time passengers getting through customs from an average of 30 to 90 mins for regular customs lines to 5 to 10 minutes in Global Entry lines.
Those who have Global Entry also receive TSA PreCheck. The Department of Homeland Security said in 2024 that more than 20 million Americans had TSA PreCheck, and millions of those Americans have overlapping Global Entry memberships.
Airport lines seemed largely unaffected through midday Sunday, with security check line wait times listed as under 15 minutes for most international airports, according to TSA’s mobile app.
Blair Perkins, 39, of Dallas, had seen the news about the shutdown of Global Entry before she left Cancun to return home Sunday morning to Dallas. She said after she and her friends arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that the regular line was long but moved fairly fast.
“We went around about four or five different corners to get to the end of the U.S. line,” she said.
With Global Entry, it usually takes less than five minutes to get through customs. she said. Sunday, it took about 30 minutes.
Perkins said the shutdown was frustrating. “It feels like Washington is using travelers as a pawn to try to, I guess, persuade the other side to do what they want,” she said.
Homeland Security previously said it was taking “emergency measures to preserve limited funds.” Among the steps listed were “ending Transportation Security Administration (TSA) PreCheck lanes and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Global Entry service, to refocus Department personnel on the majority of travelers.”
“We are glad that DHS has decided to keep PreCheck operational and avoid a crisis of its own making,” said Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Before announcing the PreCheck shutdown, Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Saturday night that “shutdowns have serious real world consequences.” Noem said she would take away courtesy escorts from members of Congress at airports during the partial government shutdown as well.
Jean Fay, 54, said she had no issues going through TSA PreCheck at the Baltimore airport for her 6 a.m. Sunday flight back home to Texas. She didn’t hear about the shutdown until she was changing planes in Austin, Texas, on her way to Dallas Love Field.
“When I landed in Austin I started getting the alerts,” she said.
Airlines for America, a trade group representing major carriers, said Saturday night that “it’s past time for Congress to get to the table and get a deal done.” It also criticized the announcement by saying it was “issued with extremely short notice to travelers, giving them little time to plan accordingly.”
“A4A is deeply concerned that TSA PreCheck and Global Entry programs are being suspended and that the traveling public will be, once again, used as a political football amid another government shutdown,” the organization said.
Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security criticized Homeland Security handling of airport security after the initial announcement on Saturday night. They accused the administration of “kneecapping the programs that make travel smoother and secure.”
Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, said Noem’s actions are part of an administration strategy to distract from other issues and shift responsibility.
“This administration is trying to weaponize our government, trying to make things intentionally more difficult for the American people as a political leverage,” he told CNN on Sunday. “And the American people see that.”
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AP writers Ali Swenson and Ken Sweet, in New York, and Margery A. Beck, in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
FILE - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, right, shakes hands with Transportation Security Administration Officer Monica Degro at a news conference at Harry Reid International Airport, Nov. 22, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill, File)
People stand by a board giving information on wait times at security checkpoints at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Jamie Stengle)
People walk through TSA PreCheck at Dallas Love Field on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Jamie Stengle)
