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You are here: Home / Education / Des Moines monkey house plans move forward

Des Moines monkey house plans move forward

January 17, 2003 By admin

The team designing the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary in Des Moines says it’ll be a world class research center that may one day allow apes in Iowa to talk with apes in Africa. Ted Townsend, a Des Moines businessman who started the project, says it’s important to act quickly on behalf of “great apes worldwide.” An architect has designed a series of buildings in which the apes will live and interact with researchers. Townsend says the project will foster scientific exploration and provide sanctuary for the apes.Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh of Atlanta will bring eight bonobo apes to Des Moines to live, perhaps as soon as this fall. She says it’ll be like moving from an efficiency apartment to a mansion. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh has a vision that the apes in Des Moines will be able to talk via satellite with apes in the wild in Africa.It will not be a zoo, and humans will be segregated from the apes as humans can infect the apes with dangerous illnesses. Townsend will not put a dollar figure on the entire project, but he says the money for building the sanctuary will come from private sources; no tax money will be used. The Des Moines City Council gave the project a tract of land that’s on the far east side of Des Moines east of Easter Lake. The ultimate goal will be to have four kinds of apes — chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos.

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