Friday Featured Friend -- Primarily Primates
Our featured friend this week is the wonderful Primarily Primates, a non-profit sanctuary located in Bexar County, San Antonio, Texas. This incredible 75–acre sanctuary houses, protects, and rehabilitates over 450 various non-native animals, focusing primarily on apes and monkeys (caring for members of 32 species of primates), along with a number of other rescued animals, such as birds and big cats. The story of what Primarily Primates does is always unfolding but what the people behind this sanctuary have achieved already is simply remarkable. We'd love to share with you just some of the amazing, intensely caring, and focused work that this sanctuary is doing to make sure that many animals lead a fulfilled life.
Founded in 1978, Primarily Primates became a Friends of Animals refuge three years ago, and the animal-advocacy group Friends of Animals manages the sanctuary, with responsibility for key administrative functions and fundraising. The Executive Director is Stephen Tello, with the wonderful Priscilla Feral from Friends of Animals volunteering as president of the Primarily Primates Board. Since affiliating with Friends of Animals, the sanctuary has been renovating to provide expanded sites and upgraded living spaces for birds and primates, as well as providing on-site veterinary support. Priscilla told us that it is important to understand the role of sanctuaries, as she feels that this is not always well understood; she explains that “sanctuaries differ from exhibits and other repositories for animals who belong in nature but must live in confinement. Sanctuaries don’t breed, sell, trade, or end the lives of healthy resident animals, nor are these monkeys and others put on public display.”
Primarily Primates cares for many non-native animals, including ducks, cows, an African lion, servals, and numerous monkeys and apes that have been abandoned. In the case of the monkeys and apes, many of them are cast-offs from the entertainment industry, closed-down zoos, the exotic pet trade, and biomedical research institutions. Due to their past circumstances, all of them are dependent on human care; it is not possible to release captive primates back into home territories because primates raised in captivity lack survival skills and pose a threat to local populations through disease and could potentially harm to the integrity of existing wild populations from their unknown genetic backgrounds.
Some of the more well-known individuals in the sanctuary include chimpanzees who were once used in space training and testing protocols by the United States Air Force. Then there is Oliver, a chimpanzee who was once paraded on TV shows as the “humanzee” because he walked upright. A particularly heart-warming rescue is that of five chimpanzees, Okko, Willie, Harry, Luke, and Arthur, originally sold to 20th Century Fox for the film production Project X, a film about helping chimpanzees to escape from radiation tests in an air force laboratory. Post filming, in a heartbreaking twist of irony, 20th Century Fox planned to sell the chimpanzees to... a laboratory. Fortunately, every single one of the chimpanzees found a new home at Primarily Primates, after a studio adviser pointed out the potential public outcry. Some of the primates come from zoos and exhibits that fail and wind up, such as Bukama, a 20 year old black and white colobus monkey, who came to Primarily Primates from a zoo that ceased operating in September 2009.
One of the major challenges for primates in the United States has been the ownership of primates as pets; indeed, Stephen Tello estimates that 60% of the animals at Primarily Primates are discarded pets. Priscilla explains the problems that have arisen from humans trying to keep monkeys, apes, and lemurs as pets: “We should understand that while we may be fascinated with lemurs, monkeys, and playful, adorable infant apes, the interests of these animals cannot be met in pet homes. The proliferation of the exotic pet trade is a misery for primates and these animals are routinely deposited in sanctuaries after the pet-owner is bitten or otherwise fed up with the demands of caring for a primate.” A
good example is that of Rowdy, the marmoset monkey. Rowdy was purchased as a pet when just four weeks old from a dealer who spun a line to convince the lady buying him that small primates are “easy to raise, delightful”. The reality is that small primates are not easy to raise, and Rowdy’s owner found herself giving round-the-clock attention and care for the next two years. This created a relationship of deep dependence and Rowdy became protective of his owner, biting and harming other people when out of his cage. There was little choice left but to find Rowdy a new home and fortunately, Primarily Primates was able to accommodate Rowdy, who is pictured here in all his beauty.
Sadly for the captive primate, owners can take years to accept the inevitable. As primates mature, usually between the ages of four and eight, their owners discover the increased assertiveness that often surfaces as aggression toward other people and even the owner. The deep-seated, natural need for continued contact is rarely met by busy owners and there is a tendency to react by locking their “pet” away in a small cage, removing their teeth, or to consider abandoning the pet at zoos or humane societies which are ill-equipped to cope with the needs of primates. At their wit’s end, when frazzled owners finally find the sanctuary, Stephen says that some have even threatened to kill or set loose their pets if Primarily Primates cannot make room. Naturally, it would be far better if people understood that it isn’t acceptable to own primates as pets in the first place, but there is a pressing need right now for ensuring that abandoned primates are well cared for when the result of people's ill-informed pet choices comes to these extremes. Yet, despite the fact that Primarily Primates steps in as both a source of respite for the owner and a savior for the primate, the stark reality is that once rid of their pet, only a handful of former owners continue to sponsor their primates, or even bother to send toys, or to meet promised donations.
Turning to the positive, deeply dedicated work undertaken by Primarily Primates, it is clear that the caring people involved in the refuge are making the world a better place for abandoned animals. At the moment, the sanctuary is continuing to expand its facilities to enable the animals, as Priscilla says, to “enjoy themselves in a slice of nature”. As resources permit, the sanctuary is moving away from the type of caging typically used in the 1980s, to providing improved outdoor areas for the primates. The focus is on continuing to develop enclosures and habitats in a way that will enhance the socialization of each of the groups of animals, and give them as natural an environment as possible. For example, for the tree-climbing primates such as the spider monkeys, climbing trees are provided so that they can move across the tree tops. The enclosures are large, and filled with trees, shrubs, and bushes, in order to create a naturalistic and complex environment for such primates as lemurs and spider monkeys. The enclosures for the chimpanzees are grass-bottomed and have large climbing structures; and not to be overlooked, is the sanctuary's two-acre pond (used as a native rehabilitation area for injured and infirm ducks, swans, geese, and cranes) that the chimpanzees can look over during their contemplative moments. There are temperature-controlled enclosures to ensure that in Texas’s hot summer months, the marmosets and tamarins, who generally like to play outside, have air-conditioned rooms set around 80ºF (27ºC).
The sanctuary is also eco-minded, recognizing that its space is within a larger ecology. Powered by both wind and sun, the sanctuary has a 50-foot (15 meter) wind turbine to help offset the rising financial and environmental impact of electricity and fossil fuels. The turbine powers lights, security cameras, and cooling systems, and it even feeds power back into the grid during recharging. Priscilla points out that the turbine hums to warn and protect birds and bats not to come too close to it. There is also a solar panel powering the lighting for the living area of the former US Air Force chimpanzees and there is an overhead solar-powered street light keeping the large natural aviary for parrots well lit. Priscilla says that “the use of natural energy will bring our refuge in line with our concern for the ecology and the beings that inhabit it.”
And we can’t not let you know about feeding time at the sanctuary. Apart from following their usual healthy diets carefully selected for the inhabitants, if you’re following the sanctuary’s tweets, you’ll soon realize that delicious treats are shared with the animals, from bananas to watermelons, when generous donations are made. In fact, rather than being wordy about it, here is a video of the delightful watermelon party (check out the great human watermelon cracking technique!):
There are so many amazing stories from Primarily Primates that we couldn’t tell you everything these fantastically caring people are doing, nor about all of the marvelous inhabitants, but it may just be a case of introducing you to some of the individual primates as future Friday featured friends in their own right! We want to say a very big thank you to Priscilla for taking the time to share her thoughts and to Primarily Primates, including Stephen, for taking such great care of the abandoned primates and other animals in so much need. You’re a resource that is under-recognized and unceasingly dedicated to doing good and we’re so proud to have had the chance to share your story.
If you’d like to know more, to donate funds or resources, or to become a sanctuary partner, visit Primarily Primates. You can also follow the refuge’s tweets at @Primate_Refuge, Priscilla’s Friends of Animals tweets at @pferal and Stephen’s Primarily Primate tweets at @MonkeysAndBirds.
