In August 2019, a Los Angeles animal refuge named Wildlife Waystation abruptly closed. Though it was never a member of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA, of which I serve as Program Director), our job is to help all captive primates reach sanctuary retirement whenever possible. NAPSA jumped into action by establishing a network of experts to guide the California Department of Fish & Wildlife as they took over operations at the Waystation and set to work figuring out how to rehome the many hundreds of exotic animals in residence. NAPSA oversaw the rehoming efforts for the 19 monkeys, and we were happy to see nine chimpanzees move to better homes at facilities experienced in chimpanzee care so far... But 32 chimps remain.
We established a fundraiser because though four sanctuaries have been identified who could take these 32 chimps (altogether), they need to build or expand enclosures to responsibly make room for new chimps, and they need time to do so. Full information on the campaign can be found
here. It's been a lot of work, and feels overwhelming at times, but NAPSA was identified as one of the few options for leading this effort, so I am proud to do so.
I helped found World Chimpanzee Day two years ago, and so as we were planning for a press conference to introduce the media to the fundraiser, it made perfect sense to hold the event on World Chimpanzee Day, July 14.
The event attracted nine TV and newspaper outlets, and additional interviews were conducted with radio stations afterwards. The resulting coverage is still trickling in, but I was very pleased to see a long
article in the LA Times,
Donations have started to come more quickly as a result, which is exciting to see!
