Primate sanctuaries struggling in Hawai'i
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Staff Writer
Although Hawai'i has no endemic primate of its own, the Islands, with their semitropical climate and exotic landscape, have been viewed as an ideal location for them.
Timothy Hurley • The Honolulu Advertiser
In recent years more than 100 acres of prime Hawai'i real estate have been set aside for ambitious plans for state-of-the-art sanctuary facilities. So far, however, with the exception of a few small refuges for monkeys, there's hardly a primate in sight.
The struggling Pacific Primate Sanctuary, established on Maui in 1984, has 50 monkeys, including this black marmoset.
The plight of Rusti the orangutan, housed temporarily at Honolulu Zoo while enduring delays in the construction of his sanctuary, seems to embody the state of these proposed preserves: The animal is in need, the desire to care for him is there, but the promised facilities have yet to materialize.
Koko the gorilla is another case. The Gorilla Foundation, attracted by donated land and the opportunity to create a year-round outdoor habitat for Koko and friends, announced its move from Northern California to Maui more than 10 years ago. But the facility doesn't exist.
"Who wouldn't want to come to Hawai'i?" said Deborah Fouts, co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Washington state. "Hawai'i has wonderful warm weather. It's paradise. The weather is a lot closer to what (apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees) are used to in Africa."
The institute, known for its communication experiments with chimpanzees, was exploring the possibility of moving to Maui as recently as two years ago. But Fouts and her husband, University of Central Washington professor Roger Fouts, ultimately decided against the move.
"It's still one of those dreams," Deborah Fouts said, "but because of the finances, it's not going to happen."
Money is the big obstacle. Former state Sen. Avery Chumbley, a Gorilla Foundation board member, attended a meeting in San Francisco a year and a half ago when a group of primate researchers considered joining forces to help move to Maui.
"It all comes down to who's going to be able to raise the money," said Chumbley, who owns a pair of spider monkeys that were saved from being euthanized when the Maui Zoo closed in 1995.
"I think if they could, they all would come to Hawai'i," Chumbley said of groups interested in creating sanctuaries. "It's got the climate. It's got the political stability. It's in the United States. There are a lot of good reasons. It's just that if you can't raise the funds, it's not going to happen."
For 10 years the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International tried to establish a sanctuary for up to 20 orangutans near Hilo. Rusti, an orangutan abandoned by abusive parents and forced to live in a small cage in a roadside zoo on the Mainland, was sent to Hawai'i by the foundation six years ago to be the sanctuary's first resident.
But the plan never got off the ground — even after the Legislature allocated nearly $1 million for the "economic development" project in 1998. Then-Gov. Ben Cayetano never released the money, and the foundation, which broke ground in Hilo on Sept. 24, 2001, said it was unable to raise the $5.75 million needed to create the 28-acre reserve next to Hawai'i County's Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo.
Rusti is still held in a cramped enclosure at Honolulu Zoo — a situation that has drawn the wrath of animal rights activists — while the foundation tries to establish its sanctuary at Kualoa Ranch for Rusti and other orangutans.
Birute Mary Galdikas, founder of Orangutan Foundation International, could not be reached for comment. But John Morgan, president of Kualoa Ranch, said architects representing the foundation were scheduled to visit the ranch this week to start working on a new design for Rusti's future home. Morgan didn't know when construction would begin.
On Maui, the dream of a gorilla sanctuary is still alive nearly two decades after the idea was first floated in Hawai'i. In fact, the latest fund-raising drive, for $3 million, is scheduled to begin in September.
Lorraine Slater, the foundation's new development director, said she expects this "more intensive, more organized" campaign to raise the necessary money within six to nine months. Film comedian Robin Williams and rock star Sting have agreed to head the foundation's honorary board, she said.
On land donated by Maui Land & Pineapple Co., the foundation wants to create the first "natural" gorilla sanctuary outside of Africa, along with a high-tech visitor center in Lahaina where tourists would view the gorillas on closed-circuit television.
In addition to housing Koko — a gorilla famous for her ability to communicate in sign language — the facility would allow gorillas and their families to spend their days in seclusion "socializing, napping in the sun, playing, foraging through edible vegetation, communicating, reproducing and raising their children."
Chumbley said grading and other preliminary work on the 70-acre parcel in Mahinahina is under way, and officials with the Gorilla Foundation have met with University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle to discuss a research tie-in with UH.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Maui, the Pacific Primate Sanctuary operates on a shoestring budget. The refuge for New World monkeys of Central and South America was established by Lucy Wormser on her Ha'iku property in 1984. It has 50 monkeys, including four species of marmosets, three species of tamarins and a colony of capuchins, many of them handed over from research labs, rescued from the pet trade or acquired from failed commercial ventures.
"They're learning how to be monkeys again," said Wormser, who oversees a staff of 15 volunteers, among them a summer intern from England's Cambridge University who is studying techniques for rehabilitating primates.
The Pacific Primate Sanctuary, which runs on less than a tenth of the annual budget of the Gorilla Foundation, struggles to stay afloat.
A private foundation that provided half of the sanctuary's annual budget recently cut off money, while other grant applications were turned down as well — a first, said Wormser. Plans to build intern housing and an environmental education center and to stock an infirmary have been deferred, she said.
Reach Timothy Hurley at thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
