Rescued Primates Find a Home in Wales

Graham Garen, Director, Cefn-yr-Erw Primate Sanctuary, Wales
April 2007

One of the Beirut baboons in her narrow cage The crated monkeys, ready for transport, are offered carrots Following the truck on the road to Beirut Airport

Our sanctuary, Cefn-yr-Erw, is located at Abercrave in the Brecon Beacons National Park area of South Wales. We provide sanctuary to a variety of animals in need of rescue from abusive situations—both at home and abroad—but we specialize in caring for primates, including chimpanzees, marmosets, and baboons. Lately, we have rescued unwanted primates from quite far afield indeed.

Primates from Portugal

In 2006 we were contacted by a U.K.-based animal charity with regard to re-homing eight olive baboons and a vervet monkey. These p rimates formerly lived in a closed-down municipal zoo in Faro, Portugal. A local appeal in the U.K. was made to try and raise funds for housing and to transport them to the U.K., as Portugal would not cover any of these costs. There was an amazing response. GB Airways (a British Airways franchise) agreed to fly the primates free of charge, and the British public funded the majority of the rest of the expenses.

These primates had previously lived Rescued Primates Find a Home in Wales Graham Garen, Director, Cefn-yr-Erw Primate Sanctuary, Wales in an indoor house with small mesh panel for looking out. They arrived at Cefn-yr-Erw in October 2006. It was amazing to see them coming out of their travelling containers. They were so nervous that it took them two hours to get up the courage to leave their crates. Then the animals in the top crates had difficulties finding a way to get down from three feet in the air: the poor animals had never had access to any trees, branches, or climbing ropes. However, they eventually succeeded and have not looked back. They have turned into an amazing group.

The Beirut monkeys

Why is it that, when sanctuaries are contacted in order to place animals that have been rescued from bad situations, one immediately thinks that these animals surely cannot have experienced conditions as dreadful as the horrendous circumstances endured by the animals in the last rescue. Unfortunately, however, this is nearly always the case. It was certainly true for our most recent rescue, which took place in Beirut. In total there were seven primates (three baboons, one macaque, and a mother vervet monkey with her two babies) who had been rescued during the recent war in Lebanon. Some were from a zoo located in an area of intense bombing, and two came from a pet shop. The plight of all these animals captured peoples’ hearts when an appeal was made to help fund their rescue.

The two pet baboons, Kevin and Linda, were kept together in a cage so small that, by taking just one pace, they travelled from one side of the cage to the other. Living in these conditions must have been very stressful, particularly for Linda, as Kevin attacked her each time they were fed. Confined to such a small cage, she could not escape. These two animals found temporary homes with the group Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but we wanted to bring all of them to their permanent new home at Cefn-yr-Erw as quickly as possible.

Due to the war, all flights from the U.K. to Beirut were suspended, so an immediate response was not feasible, but we were always in touch with the caregivers in Beirut with advice on the animals’ care and any other problems. During the conflict, the primates had to be moved several times to avoid being in the areas where bombing was taking place. When they were originally rescued, shrapnel from the bombs was found in their cages.

Help for the stranded primates

To rescue these seven primates we had to raise money for flights, accommodation, and quarantine. IPPL was the first to offer help. Several other charities also donated, as did the public in the U.K. We were amazed at the response. As soon as some of the funds arrived, we took a gamble that more financial help would soon be on the way, so we started preparing for the trip to Beirut to transfer the primates to their transport crates. We even booked the fiights. Then a Lebanese government minister was assassinated only two days before our departure; it looked as though the Beirut Airport might close and our plans might fall apart! Fortunately, the airport did not close after all, and we finally left the U.K. for the Middle East.

Chaos in the streets of Beirut

The primates were at this time at a location about two hours away from Beirut. The day before they were due to leave, we travelled to see them and make sure they were fit to travel. Amazingly, they were all in great shape, considering their past and what they had to endure during the war.

We returned to Beirut to find the streets in chaos with road blocks, riot police, and tanks, as the government was about to make a proclamation. Nevertheless, we arranged for a truck to carry the five transport crates from Beirut and return to Beirut Airport with the primates. We also made emergency plans with another trucking company—just in case. We would meet the truck early the next morning at the warehouse to load the transport crates.

At 8 a.m. the truck arrived. We loaded the crates and the truck left to pick up the monkeys. Wrong! It had gone about 300 meters and stopped! The clutch cable was broken; the driver was busy trying to do a repair, saying, “It’s OK, I can tie it.” Wrong again! Thankfully we had the emergency truck lined up—the last thing we wanted was the truck breaking down with the primates on board.

After about 30 minutes, the other truck arrived. We moved the crates and left Beirut to travel to the farm where the monkeys were staying. We unloaded the transport crates in front of seven pairs of watchful eyes. The primates were all curious at what was taking place—probably nervous at what was going to happen, but maybe excited, perceiving that they could well be heading toward a better life.

Linda Baboon makes a fuss!

All went well with their transfer to their travelling crates. We all took time to sit with the primates to reassure them before leaving. The transport crates were then loaded and strapped down on the truck bed, and we followed the truck back to Beirut Airport. Once at the airport, the Emirates Airline staff was there to transfer the crates immediately from the truck onto the loading pallet for the aircraft; the crates were labelled, strapped down, and covered with a cargo net. Then Linda started screaming: Kevin had not been placed near her! So everything was undone and the crates re-arranged to meet Linda’s requirements; then all was well!

At 8 p.m. the primates flew from Lebanon to Dubai. Emirates phoned to confirm that Linda was now fine, with Kevin in sight. With an overnight stopover, they were on their way to Heathrow Airport, where I had flown earlier to arrive an hour before them. Heathrow’s animal reception centre was aware that the primates were on the way, as I had notified them by phone when I was leaving Beirut. They always take such good care of all animals. We have a good relationship with the manager and staff, and they are always very kind and concerned for the well-being of the rescued animals the sanctuary is re-homing. After a short delay while the animals’ papers were cleared, the primates were loaded into our vehicle for the 180-mile journey to our sanctuary in Wales.

Safe in Wales

My wife Jan was waiting eagerly for us. The staff had finished work for the evening but were still there, too, waiting excitedly to meet their new charges and to feed them on arrival. All the primates were eager for food and were a little stunned at the size of their new home after having spent their lives in tiny prisons.

It has always amazed us at the sanctuary that, no matter how much abuse humans inflict on our fellow primates, they are nearly always willing to forgive and to start to trust humans again in a very short time. It is a pity humans want to inflict abuse on them in the first place. Please visit our sanctuary’s Web site (http://www.cefn-yr-erw.co.uk/) for more news and updates on the primates at their new home in Wales.

Young Beirut Chimpanzee Needs A Better Home: Please Help Charlie! Graham Garen, Director, Cefn-yr-Erw Primate Sanctuary, Wales While in Beirut, I took the time to go to a zoo called Animal City, as I knew that in the past a one-year-old chimp called Charlie had been on display there. I arrived early and the zoo was not yet open to the public, but I persuaded the workers to let me stay, as I would not be able to visit again because of business meetings. I strolled around the zoo trying discreetly to take photos of the animals without attracting too much attention. What I saw there were bears, big cats, injured wolves, baboons tied on chains, but no young chimp. As I was about to leave, one of the workers came and asked for payment then told me, “Come see my chimp.” He led me to a brick building. Inside what I could only classify as a parrot cage was Charlie. At first he looked like a stuffed toy—not moving, just attached to the bars of the cage. I went over to him and touched him. He was not a toy but a living animal, yet he had no reaction to being touched or talked to. He did not even have a blink reaction to the camera flash. This lonely poor young chimp is passed around at children’s parties at the zoo like a stuffed animal. This is no existence for Charlie. Chimps can live to be over 50 years old; it is terrible to begin such a long life being treated like an object. He should be sent to one of the African sanctuaries and hopefully returned to the wild one day. Please write to the following people to express your wish that Charlie Chimpanzee be confiscated from the Animal City Zoo and transferred to a responsible sanctuary, like Chimfunshi in Zambia. Postage from the United States to Lebanon is 84 cents per ounce; from the U.K. it is 54 pence for 10 g or 78 pence for 20 g. H.E. Ambassador Farid Abboud Embassy of Lebanon 2560 28th Street, NW Washington, DC 20008, USA Fax: (202) 939-6324 H.E. Ambassador Jihad Mourtada Embassy of Lebanon 21 Kensington Palace Gardens London, W8 4QM, UNITED KINGDOM Fax: (20) 7243 1699 Mr. Yacoub Riad Sarraf Minister of Environment Lazarieh Center, 7th & 8th Floor Block A-4 New, A4-Old, and A5 P.O. Box 11/2727 Beirut, LEBANON Fax: +961-1- 976534