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  • From: Amber Hewins <ahewins AT mac.com>
  • To: Monkeywire <monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Chimp Veterans of Science Laboratories Will Soon Get Own Retirement Haven
  • Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 08:57:37 -0500

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/28/national/28CHIM.html

THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 28, 2003

Chimp Veterans of Science Laboratories Will Soon Get Own Retirement Haven
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN


HREVEPORT, La. — Somewhere beyond the Crawfish Palace, beyond the roadside shops selling horse blankets and twisted alligator claws, beyond the towering casino with the $1 million wall, the future residents will build their homes, or more specifically, their nests.

Robert Davis cannot wait to meet them. Or at least wave a friendly hello.

The new neighbors might be pretty mellow after years of dedicated service. And a little long in the tooth.

But Mr. Davis, a janitor at a diner, is rolling out the welcome mat as if they were long lost kin — and in a way they are.

"I can't wait to see me a chimp," he said.

As Mr. Davis cleared tables of burgers and fries during a recent lunch hour, bulldozers not far away cleared trees for what will soon be the nation's largest sanctuary for chimpanzees, essentially a Delray Beach for veterans of the science laboratories.

In the woods outside Shreveport, construction began last week on Chimp Haven, a $29 million federally financed project deemed a humane solution to the growing surplus of chimps.

It is an unlikely partnership between animal lovers and a community best known as a gambling hot spot and a sportsman's paradise. Here in northwest Louisiana, animals usually get stalked, shot, skinned and stuffed. At least, that was the stereotype.

But as the chimp project edges closer to reality, more and more people are getting excited and even a little giddy.

"When we first heard about this, we all started laughing," said Billy Hanna, administrator for Caddo Parish, which includes the city of Shreveport. "But as we learned more, we realized that we as a society really owe these chimps."

Yes, there were a few initial concerns that chimps smell (they do) and that they might escape (unlikely). Some people even made cracks that if chimps got a federally financed retirement home, maybe they should also get 401(k)'s.

Chimpanzees are man's closest relative, sharing 98 percent of the same DNA. They were aggressively bred in the 1980's because scientists thought they might hold the key to curing AIDS. They did not, and soon there was a surplus of animals so intelligent they can use sign language. Today, many are kept like rats in small cages, a long way from the chimp heyday of the 1960's when a fuzzy ape named Ham rocketed into space.

For more than a decade, Linda Brent, a Jane Goodall protégée, and a cadre of animal rights advocates searched for a place where chimps could wile away their golden years.

In 1998, a Shreveport developer heard about the project and helped persuade Caddo Parish officials to donate 200 acres of thick forest to Chimp Haven. It may not be equatorial Africa, but it is pretty lush. The first of 300 graying chimps are expected to hit the woods next year.

Dr. Brent can already hear the happy screeches.

"Right where we're standing, these chimps will be building nests and hunting for food and stripping leaves off branches to make tools," Dr. Brent, Chimp Haven's president, said as she stood in blue jeans and swamp boots watching bulldozers drag away trees. "They're going to learn how to be chimps again."

Local tourist traders cannot wait. The Shreveport area already draws two million visitors a year thanks to five casinos, including one with a million dollars in crisp 100's pressed behind glass. Chimp Haven may not have that Vegas shimmer, but it will be open to the public for educational tours, and "we'll have people from all across the country and even the world coming to see it," said Brandy Evans, spokeswoman for the local tourist bureau.

There is some sense of urgency to the project.

Of the 1,600 chimps in federal research laboratories, only a few old ones were born in the wild. Many live to be in their 50's but if they die before Chimp Haven is finished, "who will teach the others how to climb a tree? Who will show them how to build a nest?" Dr. Brent asked.

Rita, an African-born 48-year-old chimp currently prowling a chain-link cage at a research laboratory in San Antonio, will be one of Chimp Haven's first residents.

"Call me crazy, but when I look into her face, I see a person staring back at me," Dr. Brent said on a recent day as she dropped apricots into Rita's leathery palm. "And it's not just curiosity I see, but resentment."

Dr. Brent said wild-born chimps like Rita are much better at sticking twigs into a barrel and extracting honey, a task that simulates termite hunting, than laboratory-born chimps. The design of Chimp Haven includes indoor enclosures where animals will be cared for and expanses of piney woods where chimps will be able to hunt small game and live off the land.

The grounds will be surrounded by a 20-foot-high concrete wall and a wide moat — chimps cannot swim. Both are security measures to protect curious chimps from getting out and perhaps prevent curious hunters from getting in.

"Let's just hope a couple local boys don't get liquored up and grab their guns," said Danny Polk, one of the construction workers at Chimp Haven.

"This is Louisiana," Mr. Polk said. "We eat crawfish. There ain't many things we don't go after."

In the small downtown office of Chimp Haven, paintings by chimps hang on the wall (think of random splotches of color and the odd swatch of fur) and all around are stuffed animals and bowls of bananas.

Volunteers lick envelopes and plan events, like a recent fund-raising concert called Chimpstock.

"It's amazing," said Linda Koebner, executive director of Chimp Haven. "Many of our volunteers haven't even seen a chimp."



  • [monkeywire] Chimp Veterans of Science Laboratories Will Soon Get Own Retirement Haven, Amber Hewins, 12/02/2003

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