Wailing at the top of his lungs, demanding dinner, is a chimpanzee, and in cowboy country that means one thing: You've arrived at Chimps Inc., a nonprofit little known in Oregon but considered one of the nation's top chimpanzee sanctuaries by wildlife experts. Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist, serves on its advisory board.
Such sanctuaries will be increasingly in demand if federal laws and regulations concerning nonhuman primates -- under review by Congress and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- shift in the animals' favor.
Last month, Fish and Wildlife initiated a review to determine whether captive chimpanzees should be granted federal endangered-species status. That change would have unknown implications for chimps used in research but would put an end to the chimps-as-pets industry, says Steve Ross, assistant director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.
Based at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, Ross also directs Project ChimpCare, which recently completed a coast-to-coast survey aiming to determine how many chimps live in roadside menageries, amusement parks, breeding operations, laboratories, legitimate sanctuaries, private homes and accredited zoos. The answer: about 2,000.
While many dwell in substandard conditions, Chimps Inc.'s seven residents have cushy digs in sprawling open-air and indoor enclosures 1 1/2 miles off U.S. 20 in Tumalo, north of Bend. Neighboring Washington has another of what Ross considers North America's top-tier, legitimate, ape retirement homes, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum.
Chimps Inc. operates on about $190,000 annually and has assets of about $837,000, according to the Oregon Department of Justice charities database.
The sanctuary started in the early 1990s, when Lesley Day went looking for a pet chimpanzee. Today, she acknowledges that was an ill-conceived idea, given the high cost and heavy challenges of humanely housing such a smart, powerful and potentially dangerous wild animal.
Ross estimates the cost of lifetime care for one chimp at $750,000.
Jane Goodall lecture
What: Chimps Inc. sponsors a talk by Jane Goodall, primatologist, conservationist and United Nations messenger of peace.
When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Deschutes County Fairgrounds, Redmond
Tickets: $35 general admission; $20 for those 18 and younger, and 65 and older; $75 preferred seating. Available at the fairgrounds, at several outlets around Bend, or online.
Proceeds: Benefit the Jane Goodall Institute and Tumalo’s Chimps Inc. sanctuary.
Learn more online.
One chimp in particular caught Day's eye, an adult male named Topo, who'd spent decades shuffling between roadside zoos and the entertainment industry.
"I saw Topo's eyes and it was over," says Day, 65. "I knew right then I was going to rescue adult chimpanzees."
***
Chimps Inc. started small.
Day bought used cages and brought them home to Hooker Creek Ranch, the gated high-desert spread where she and her husband of 26 years, Matt Day, raise cutting horses and working cow horses. They live atop the hill overlooking the sanctuary in a 14,720-square-foot home last valued at more than $3 million, according to county tax records.
Day, a Beaverton native who takes no salary as Chimps Inc.'s president, turned a four-car garage into an indoor chimp house and enclosed an outdoor yard with chimp-proof electric fencing. And she negotiated with Topo's owner to move him west, promising high-quality, lifelong care, complete with a succession plan and endowment to ensure the sanctuary's financial stability in the event of her death -- all hallmarks of the few sanctuaries that experts such as Ross consider legitimate.
On Oct. 10, 1995, Topo arrived in Tumalo. The Chimps Inc. website explains what happened the next day:
"As Lesley opened the door, Topo cautiously stepped outside. He had not felt the earth under his feet for many years, if ever. He ran over with big pant(ing) hoots, as if he was thanking us."
Today, the gray-bearded beast is the sanctuary's senior citizen and alpha male. His age is unknown, but it's believed he was born in the early to mid-1970s, putting him at perhaps 40; captive chimps can live as old as 60.
Herbie, 25, searches the grounds of his outdoor enclosure for treats his keepers have hidden around the compound. All the animals previously were pets or used for entertainment at Marine World Africa USA in California and elsewhere.
Today, they have access to indoor and outdoor enclosures equipped with swinging ropes, climbing platforms, hammocks and an endless array of toys, from concrete pipes and tractor tires to stuffed animals and big plastic sunglasses, which some of the chimps like to wear.
Each day, they take turns roaming an elaborate one-acre yard featuring tunnels where it's cool on hot summer days, and a towering play structure built from logs and fire hoses. Plastic bottles filled with water are scattered around the yard, as some of the chimps prefer to drink from them. Arm-sized holes in the fencing allow the apes to reach through and pick strawberries and grapes planted around the perimeter.
Volunteers and interns help two paid keepers, Shayla Scott and Andrea Menashe, who also care for two lynxes occupying a separate enclosure.
Visitors typically are not allowed, except during a once-a-year open house for the sanctuary's 300 to 400 members.
Those who do visit must sign waivers releasing Chimps Inc. from liability. A former intern sued the sanctuary a few years ago after losing part of a thumb when a chimp got into a cage where the intern was working and attacked her. The liability waiver held up, and the suit was thrown out of court.
***
Jackson, 10, gazes through a cage opening big enough so he can pick strawberries planted outside. As dinnertime approaches, the chimps' squealing, howling and banging builds like an Autzen Stadium roar at kickoff.
In a commercial kitchen equipped with a walk-in freezer and refrigerator, Menashe pulls steaming sweet potatoes from a microwave oven. She places them in fabric grocery bags along with whole heads of iceberg lettuce, onions, peanuts, carrots, leeks, tomatoes and broccoli. Some of the chow is harvested from beds on the property tended by volunteer master gardeners, who also planted a sign that reads "Plants of the Apes."
Some chimps take medication delivered crushed in juice-filled Dixie cups. One is diabetic. All the females are on birth control.
Ross, the chimp expert from Chicago, says it's not always easy for the public to determine whether chimp sanctuaries are legitimate, or simply masquerading as sanctuaries while trading in animals.
Nonprofit status, he says, is not a foolproof indicator. No legitimate sanctuary allows its chimps to breed. All legitimate outfits guarantee lifetime care, and they don't buy or sell chimps, Ross says.
A couple of years ago Day was among a group of seven sanctuary operators who formed the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance. It aims to establish standards for primate sanctuaries across North America, and to help improve primate care across the board. Those goals will grow more important, Ross says, as laboratories look to reduce their chimp colonies, and if new laws make apes less profitable for the entertainment industry.
Ross understands the deep attraction to chimps -- either from those who want to bond with a species that shares so many human characteristics, or from those who stand to make money off them.
"You're not a normal person," he says, to want care for chimps. "As much as it is about loving them, there are bigger issues to deal with. ... People like Lesley have managed to channel that passion in a real positive way. It's a selfless thing to give up your life for these animals."
With dinner prepped, Menashe delivers, slipping vegetable-filled grocery bags through a mailbox-like slot in the chimp house.
Herbie, a handsome 165-pound, 25-year-old male, grabs a blue Walmart bag, clutches it to his chest and scampers off to a ledge abutting a window into the kitchen. He settles in to eat, examining a big white onion before chomping into it.
He nibbles on a tomato, bites into broccoli and snaps the end off a carrot. Pausing, Herbie uses long, yellowed fingernails to carefully pick bits of food from his teeth.
The place has grown so quiet about all you can hear are horse whinnies from the pasture next door and wind rustling the pines.
In a commercial kitchen equipped with a walk-in freezer and refrigerator, Menashe pulls steaming sweet potatoes from a microwave oven. She places them in fabric grocery bags along with whole heads of iceberg lettuce, onions, peanuts, carrots, leeks, tomatoes and broccoli. Some of the chow is harvested from beds on the property tended by volunteer master gardeners, who also planted a sign that reads "Plants of the Apes."
Some chimps take medication delivered crushed in juice-filled Dixie cups. One is diabetic. All the females are on birth control.
Ross, the chimp expert from Chicago, says it's not always easy for the public to determine whether chimp sanctuaries are legitimate, or simply masquerading as sanctuaries while trading in animals.
Nonprofit status, he says, is not a foolproof indicator. No legitimate sanctuary allows its chimps to breed. All legitimate outfits guarantee lifetime care, and they don't buy or sell chimps, Ross says.
A couple of years ago Day was among a group of seven sanctuary operators who formed the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance. It aims to establish standards for primate sanctuaries across North America, and to help improve primate care across the board. Those goals will grow more important, Ross says, as laboratories look to reduce their chimp colonies, and if new laws make apes less profitable for the entertainment industry.
Ross understands the deep attraction to chimps -- either from those who want to bond with a species that shares so many human characteristics, or from those who stand to make money off them.
"You're not a normal person," he says, to want care for chimps. "As much as it is about loving them, there are bigger issues to deal with. ... People like Lesley have managed to channel that passion in a real positive way. It's a selfless thing to give up your life for these animals."
With dinner prepped, Menashe delivers, slipping vegetable-filled grocery bags through a mailbox-like slot in the chimp house.
Herbie, a handsome 165-pound, 25-year-old male, grabs a blue Walmart bag, clutches it to his chest and scampers off to a ledge abutting a window into the kitchen. He settles in to eat, examining a big white onion before chomping into it.
He nibbles on a tomato, bites into broccoli and snaps the end off a carrot. Pausing, Herbie uses long, yellowed fingernails to carefully pick bits of food from his teeth.
The place has grown so quiet about all you can hear are horse whinnies from the pasture next door and wind rustling the pines.
Chimps find sanctuary in central Oregon | OregonLive.com
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