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History
Great Ape Trust is a scientific research facility in Des Moines, Iowa, dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence, and to the preservation of endangered great apes in their natural habitats. Announced in 2002 and receiving its first ape residents in 2004, Great Ape Trust is home to a colony of six bonobos involved in noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities, and to six orangutans. In addition to the communicative and cognitive work with bonobos and orangutans, Great Ape Trust has also supported and directed since late 2007, a chimpanzee conservation and forest restoration initiative in Rwanda.
2002
April
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is announced by Ted Townsend and Dr. Sue Savage Rumbaugh, whose bonobo research program will transfer from Georgia State University to Des Moines.
2003
May
City of Des Moines gives the project nearly 140 acres of undeveloped property on the site of a former sand quarry in southeast Des Moines.
June
Announcement of Dr. Rob Shumaker’s orangutan research program coming to Great Ape Trust from Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.
2004
June
Site preparation and construction begin at Great Ape Trust.
September
First residents arrive at Great Ape Trust: sibling orangutans Azy and Indah from Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C.
2005
February
Knobi, an adult female orangutan, arrives from Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.
April/May
A family of eight bonobos, including the world-famous Kanzi, arrives from the Language Research Center at Georgia State University.
June
MidAmerican Energy Company donates nearly 90 acres of adjacent property to Great Ape Trust.
October
Allie, an adolescent female orangutan, arrives from the Denver Zoo.
2006
February
Great Ape Trust receives $250,000 gift from the Blank Foundation of Des Moines.
June
Public visits begin at Great Ape Trust.
December
Great Ape Trust provides more than $86,000 in 2006 for nearly a dozen primate conservation efforts on three continents.
2007
July
Great Ape Academy, a multidisciplinary education program, is announced as a pilot project with middle school students in the Des Moines Public School District.
August
Iowa State University and Great Ape Trust sign a memorandum of agreement to establish “the world’s pre-eminent collaboration for primate studies.”
September
Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa and Great Ape Trust introduce their academic partnership.
October
Great Ape Trust awards for the year $127,000 for 22 conservation iniatives throughout the world.
December
The Rwandan government, Earthpark and Great Ape Trust begin collaboration on the Gishwati Area Conservation Program. The project will restore biodiversity and expand economic development near the Gishwati Reserve in western Rwanda.
2008
February
Great Ape Trust signs its first international memorandum of understanding, a pact with Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, Indonesia.
May
Great Ape Trust hosts Decade of the Mind III, a symposium exploring the topics of consciousness and mind in nonhuman primates, with an emphasis on great apes.
May
Madeleine Nyiratuza, a Rwandan environmentalist and educator, is selected to direct the Gishwati Area Conservation Program, a landmark forest restoration and ecological effort in western Rwanda.
June
Floodwaters from the Des Moines River inundate Great Ape Trust’s 230- acre campus. Bonobos and orangutan remain safe and dry, but nearly $1.5 million is sustained in damages.
July
Efforts begin to relocate a group of entertainment orangutans from Los Angeles to Great Ape Trust. Three-year-old Rocky and his 19-year old mother, Katy, are the first to arrive.
July
Drake University and Great Ape Trust announce collaboration to bring primate studies to the university’s curriculum and to create research opportunities for students and faculty.
August
Great Ape Trust registers with the government of Republic of Rwanda as an international non-governmental organization (INGO).
October
Popi, a 37-year-old female orangutan who appeared in Clint Eastwood movies and a Las Vegas act, is the third entertainment orangutan to be relocated to Great Ape Trust from Los Angeles.
December
Dr. Rebecca Chancellor is named principal investigator of a chimpanzee behavioral ecology study for the Gishwati Area Conservation Program.
2009
January
Great Ape Trust of Iowa officials are reporting another round of conservation grants totaling nearly $84,000, bringing to more than $540,000 the amount invested over four years to conserve wild apes and other endangered primates and their habitats. Over the period, Great Ape Trust has provided $381,239 in direct conservation aid to about two dozen international organizations, and $160,000 in support of the Gishwati Area Conservation Program, a 16-month-old reforestation effort in Rwanda.
March
The first infant chimpanzee is born since the beginning of the Gishwati Area Conservation Program field study led by Dr. Rebecca Chancellor. Officials are encouraged on several fronts: The chimpanzee population has grown from 12 to 14; an adult female that had not been recognized before is identified; the small population is actively reproducing, and the Gishwati Forest is once again a place where a female chimpanzee can raise a baby.
May
An “Oline” is installed in the orangutans’ forest yard to accommodate the special requirements of Allie, an orangutan with partial paralysis in her legs.
May
Great Ape Trust welcomed as an international partner in GRASP, the Great Ape Survival Project, an international conservation effort backed by the United Nations to reduce the lost of tropical rainforest by 2010 and secure the future of endangered great apes by 2015.
November
Great Ape Trust and Blank Park Zoo were unable to reach an agreement on the transfer of a colony of orangutans from the scientific research center. Coupled with restrictions on expansion of Great Ape Trust facilities because of the Floods of 2008, the organization’s growing population of orangutans will be relocated outside of Des Moines.
2010
January
Efforts will begin to expand Rwanda's Gishwati National Conservation Park by 21 percent and develop a 30-mile (50 km) forest corridor to Nyungwe National Park for a small group of endangered chimpanzees.
Through organizational restructuring, Great Ape Trust shifted its focus to bonobo language research and reforestation and chimpanzee conservation efforts in Rwanda.
February
Great Ape Trust filed federal court documents seeking resolution to the contested ownership of two of its bonobos, Matata and her son Maisha.
A partnership agreement will provide Simpson College students the opportunity to study bonobos at Great Ape Trust and contribute to The Trust’s breakthrough language research.
March
Through an alliance with Great Ape Trust and Buena Vista University, computer science and psychology professor Dr. Ken Schweller will develop computer platforms scientists will use to study great ape intelligence and language.
A memorandum of understanding signed by Rwanda’s environmental minister moves the Forest of Hope — the Gishwati Area Conservation Program — closer to reality.
For the second time in a year, a chimpanzee was born in the Gishwati National Conservation Park and increases the small population of apes on the brink of extinction to 15.
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