Longview couple rescues abused monkeys
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) - Baby monkey ads are designed to trap the tender-hearted: "Darling pet monkey ... Almost human with its warm eyes. Your family will love it. ..."
But few people realize the complexity of caring for a monkey, and they aren't prepared to commit for the animal's lifespan of 35 to 50 years, said Polly Schultz, founder and chief executive officer of the OPR Coastal Primate Sanctuary in Longview, which cares for ailing and crippled monkeys, mostly ex-pets.
Schultz devotes her life to monkeys, including an infant rhesus who sleeps in her bed.
"I love them so much," Schultz said as she took a Daily News team through the 60-by-60-foot monkey house last week. She stopped by each cage to visit with the monkeys.
"Keiki (a Java macaque) was beaten by his owner at 4 months old for stealing one of her cigarettes," Schultz said. "He had a broken hand and a concussion, plus an untreated heart condition. ... The lady pleaded guilty to animal abuse, and the courts placed him with us."
The sanctuary in the Eufaula Heights area is home to 19 special-needs primates like Keiki. Schultz, 52, said she and her husband, Skip, 62, assisted by volunteers, try to give the monkeys the best lives possible in captivity.
"With these guys, there's no way to release back to the wild," she said. "These monkeys are here because they needed someone to take care of them and they had nowhere else to go."
Schultz has been interested in animal rescue since childhood and worked in wildlife rehabilitation for about 13 years.
About 11 years ago she saw an ad for an "adorable baby monkey" and thought, "I can do that - and I did."
Her first monkey, Amy, was a Java macaque who died from a genetic heart ailment caused by inbreeding.
"I got on the Internet chat groups, where people owning private monkeys could get together," Schultz said. "It was there that I started to see the picture unfold, and it just kept going and going."
Despite bans in many states, including Washington, on owning monkeys as pets, disreputable "monkey mills" breed and sell untold numbers of baby monkeys every year, Schultz said.
"They've never been to the wild; they can never go to the wild," she said. "Monkeys bred for pets are going to be sold as pets but they're not going to be pets in a few years. For the most part, it typically doesn't work out."
She would like to see a law requiring that monkey breeders confirm that a purchaser has a permit and is living in a place that allows monkeys before a sale is allowed. She knows a Washington woman who recently paid $10,000 for a capuchin, then learned it was illegal to own one. When the woman called the breeder to complain, "The breeder said, 'That's your problem. You should have done your research,"' Schultz said.
The Schultzes established the licensed nonprofit charitable organization 10 years ago on a two-acre farm in Dallas, Ore. Three months ago, after many years of searching, they moved the sanctuary to a 28-acre farm at 717 Harmony Drive, which they lease.
Their primates are all small breeds: capuchins, Java macaques, spider monkeys, tamarins, a marmoset and a rhesus. The oldest is 19 years; the youngest is 8-month-old George, the rhesus. Most were pets; some are retired from research laboratories; and the tiny marmoset, Peanut, was a pet whose owner gave her to the Denver Zoo.
"She wasn't doing real well there," Schultz said. "She was too humanized. She was terrified of the other marmosets."
Peanut has been happier since a family of five cotton-top tamarins recently moved in to the sanctuary, Schultz said. The tamarins, retired from research, are kept in a darkened "de-stressing" environment in sight of Peanut while they adjust, but eventually they'll be in a glassed area that "will seem like outside," Schultz said.
Many of the monkeys are "genetic messes" due to inbreeding, Schultz said. Some were mistreated, and some had their teeth pulled by their ex-owners to prevent biting.
Rambo, an 18-year-old white-faced capuchin, is one of several toothless monkeys in the sanctuary. "It causes a lot of nutritional issues," Schultz said, because pulling teeth removes the ability to chew and produce saliva, the first step in digestion. "We have to cook all his food and soak his biscuits."
Kermie, an 18-year-old Java macaque, is mentally ill and permanently hunched from living in a small crate, Schultz said. His leg muscles atrophied because the bones couldn't develop, and he developed lung cancer and emphysema because his owner smoked, Schultz said. After his owner realized she couldn't care for him and placed him with OPR, "all he could do was sit under a blanket and rock all day," Schultz said.
But Kermie began to thrive after Schultz paired him with Tyler, another Java macaque.
"The morning after we placed them together, they were both under the blanket and Tyler had his arm around Kermie," Schultz said. "He's a fantastic companion for him."
Another well-matched pair of roommates are the medically fragile Ernie and motherly, plump Pearly Sue, both Java macaques. Ernie, 10, was born with an enlarged heart and a seizure disorder and has survived two major heart attacks and liver failure.
"We could have bought a really nice house for what we spent pulling Ernie out of his liver failure," Schultz said, allowing herself a flicker of longing. But she has no regrets.
As an infant, Ernie had 30 grand mal seizures a day, Schultz said. Medication keeps his seizures down to three or four a month.
"When he gets ready to have one, Pearly Sue will hold him," Schultz said.
Pearly Sue's empathy and Tyler's goes against monkeys' natural behavior to hurt weaker monkeys, Schultz explained.
The monkeys have roommates whenever possible, she said. She selects companions of the same breed who are emotionally compatible because monkeys' personalities are as varied as humans' are, she said.
"They have the same emotions that we do," she said. "You can see it when you've been working with them that close for over a decade. They have jealousy, anger, love, hate. The only difference is they can't control their emotions. We can control ours."
Their feelings show on their faces, she said. "So what tugs at my heart is when you see a monkey suffering emotionally."
College students from Central Washington and Oregon State universities have interned at the facility studying primate behavior. Two primatologists from CWU spent a week at the facility, coming up with different research ideas and tools for the environment, Schultz said.
The primatologists were amazed to see the Java macaques flossing their teeth, she said. "They use human hair, coconut fibers, green cherry wood - you just never think a monkey would floss their teeth."
Some, like Pearly Sue, are extremely bright. She hung her own hammock one day.
"She was sitting in it all proud of herself," Schultz said. "And she'll open a padlock with a key quicker than you can."
Annie, a Java macaque who died in 2007, recognized herself in the mirror and even used the mirror to pick a sticky dot off her forehead, Schultz said.
The monkeys get exercise and stimulation from the environmental areas, perches and climbing structures her husband designs and builds, she said. Recently some local children donated a playhouse they outgrew.
The sanctuary's budget last year was $25,000, and Schultz said she's not sure yet what it will cost in their new facility. The sanctuary is managed by a board of directors, but Polly Schultz is the only full-time caretaker. Her husband has a full-time job with Western Equipment Distributors in Tualatin, Ore., and all his salary goes to the sanctuary and to support themselves as the live-in caretakers.
"My husband and I have not had a vacation in more than 10 years," Schultz said. "No trips to the beach, no movies. With human children, you can get a babysitter. With dogs, cats, even horses, you can board them. But where do you board a monkey? Who do you get to stay that you can trust?"
How can they afford this?
"We can't afford not to," Schultz said. "But we don't take on more than we can physically care for. It's heartbreaking to say no, but there is a limit."
They've turned down 14 or 15 monkeys since moving to Longview. She said they have to budget to operate the sanctuary as if her husband's income were their only financial support.
"Some people do this and can't say no to anything, and then the monkeys end up in just as bad a situation as they came from," she said.
People can support their charity in many ways.
"We're not government-funded, but we rely heavily on public donations," she said.
Local businesses have donated or given them discounts on food and materials, children have come to do community service projects, and all their neighbors want to help, she said. And Lowe's Home Improvement put them on its "Hero Project" list.
"They're building our special needs area, and they're bringing volunteers to plant a garden to put up produce for the winter," she said. "And a Girl Scout troop came up and painted picnic tables."
"We've gotten such huge support from the local community," she said. "I sat down one day and just cried."
The Web site gives opportunities for donors to sponsor individual monkeys. Donations of produce (favorites are zucchini and wormy apples), educational toys, labor and time are always appreciated. It's a great learning facility for students of veterinary science or photography, she said.
She hopes to attract people who want to take over caring for the monkeys after she and her husband are gone.
"It's important that the monkeys don't respond to just one person," she said. "If this keeps going, we need the monkeys to be comfortable with other people. We want people interested in succeeding, in becoming as involved as we are."
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But few people realize the complexity of caring for a monkey, and they aren't prepared to commit for the animal's lifespan of 35 to 50 years, said Polly Schultz, founder and chief executive officer of the OPR Coastal Primate Sanctuary in Longview, which cares for ailing and crippled monkeys, mostly ex-pets.
Schultz devotes her life to monkeys, including an infant rhesus who sleeps in her bed.
"I love them so much," Schultz said as she took a Daily News team through the 60-by-60-foot monkey house last week. She stopped by each cage to visit with the monkeys.
"Keiki (a Java macaque) was beaten by his owner at 4 months old for stealing one of her cigarettes," Schultz said. "He had a broken hand and a concussion, plus an untreated heart condition. ... The lady pleaded guilty to animal abuse, and the courts placed him with us."
The sanctuary in the Eufaula Heights area is home to 19 special-needs primates like Keiki. Schultz, 52, said she and her husband, Skip, 62, assisted by volunteers, try to give the monkeys the best lives possible in captivity.
"With these guys, there's no way to release back to the wild," she said. "These monkeys are here because they needed someone to take care of them and they had nowhere else to go."
Schultz has been interested in animal rescue since childhood and worked in wildlife rehabilitation for about 13 years.
About 11 years ago she saw an ad for an "adorable baby monkey" and thought, "I can do that - and I did."
Her first monkey, Amy, was a Java macaque who died from a genetic heart ailment caused by inbreeding.
"I got on the Internet chat groups, where people owning private monkeys could get together," Schultz said. "It was there that I started to see the picture unfold, and it just kept going and going."
Despite bans in many states, including Washington, on owning monkeys as pets, disreputable "monkey mills" breed and sell untold numbers of baby monkeys every year, Schultz said.
"They've never been to the wild; they can never go to the wild," she said. "Monkeys bred for pets are going to be sold as pets but they're not going to be pets in a few years. For the most part, it typically doesn't work out."
She would like to see a law requiring that monkey breeders confirm that a purchaser has a permit and is living in a place that allows monkeys before a sale is allowed. She knows a Washington woman who recently paid $10,000 for a capuchin, then learned it was illegal to own one. When the woman called the breeder to complain, "The breeder said, 'That's your problem. You should have done your research,"' Schultz said.
The Schultzes established the licensed nonprofit charitable organization 10 years ago on a two-acre farm in Dallas, Ore. Three months ago, after many years of searching, they moved the sanctuary to a 28-acre farm at 717 Harmony Drive, which they lease.
Their primates are all small breeds: capuchins, Java macaques, spider monkeys, tamarins, a marmoset and a rhesus. The oldest is 19 years; the youngest is 8-month-old George, the rhesus. Most were pets; some are retired from research laboratories; and the tiny marmoset, Peanut, was a pet whose owner gave her to the Denver Zoo.
"She wasn't doing real well there," Schultz said. "She was too humanized. She was terrified of the other marmosets."
Peanut has been happier since a family of five cotton-top tamarins recently moved in to the sanctuary, Schultz said. The tamarins, retired from research, are kept in a darkened "de-stressing" environment in sight of Peanut while they adjust, but eventually they'll be in a glassed area that "will seem like outside," Schultz said.
Many of the monkeys are "genetic messes" due to inbreeding, Schultz said. Some were mistreated, and some had their teeth pulled by their ex-owners to prevent biting.
Rambo, an 18-year-old white-faced capuchin, is one of several toothless monkeys in the sanctuary. "It causes a lot of nutritional issues," Schultz said, because pulling teeth removes the ability to chew and produce saliva, the first step in digestion. "We have to cook all his food and soak his biscuits."
Kermie, an 18-year-old Java macaque, is mentally ill and permanently hunched from living in a small crate, Schultz said. His leg muscles atrophied because the bones couldn't develop, and he developed lung cancer and emphysema because his owner smoked, Schultz said. After his owner realized she couldn't care for him and placed him with OPR, "all he could do was sit under a blanket and rock all day," Schultz said.
But Kermie began to thrive after Schultz paired him with Tyler, another Java macaque.
"The morning after we placed them together, they were both under the blanket and Tyler had his arm around Kermie," Schultz said. "He's a fantastic companion for him."
Another well-matched pair of roommates are the medically fragile Ernie and motherly, plump Pearly Sue, both Java macaques. Ernie, 10, was born with an enlarged heart and a seizure disorder and has survived two major heart attacks and liver failure.
"We could have bought a really nice house for what we spent pulling Ernie out of his liver failure," Schultz said, allowing herself a flicker of longing. But she has no regrets.
As an infant, Ernie had 30 grand mal seizures a day, Schultz said. Medication keeps his seizures down to three or four a month.
"When he gets ready to have one, Pearly Sue will hold him," Schultz said.
Pearly Sue's empathy and Tyler's goes against monkeys' natural behavior to hurt weaker monkeys, Schultz explained.
The monkeys have roommates whenever possible, she said. She selects companions of the same breed who are emotionally compatible because monkeys' personalities are as varied as humans' are, she said.
"They have the same emotions that we do," she said. "You can see it when you've been working with them that close for over a decade. They have jealousy, anger, love, hate. The only difference is they can't control their emotions. We can control ours."
Their feelings show on their faces, she said. "So what tugs at my heart is when you see a monkey suffering emotionally."
College students from Central Washington and Oregon State universities have interned at the facility studying primate behavior. Two primatologists from CWU spent a week at the facility, coming up with different research ideas and tools for the environment, Schultz said.
The primatologists were amazed to see the Java macaques flossing their teeth, she said. "They use human hair, coconut fibers, green cherry wood - you just never think a monkey would floss their teeth."
Some, like Pearly Sue, are extremely bright. She hung her own hammock one day.
"She was sitting in it all proud of herself," Schultz said. "And she'll open a padlock with a key quicker than you can."
Annie, a Java macaque who died in 2007, recognized herself in the mirror and even used the mirror to pick a sticky dot off her forehead, Schultz said.
The monkeys get exercise and stimulation from the environmental areas, perches and climbing structures her husband designs and builds, she said. Recently some local children donated a playhouse they outgrew.
The sanctuary's budget last year was $25,000, and Schultz said she's not sure yet what it will cost in their new facility. The sanctuary is managed by a board of directors, but Polly Schultz is the only full-time caretaker. Her husband has a full-time job with Western Equipment Distributors in Tualatin, Ore., and all his salary goes to the sanctuary and to support themselves as the live-in caretakers.
"My husband and I have not had a vacation in more than 10 years," Schultz said. "No trips to the beach, no movies. With human children, you can get a babysitter. With dogs, cats, even horses, you can board them. But where do you board a monkey? Who do you get to stay that you can trust?"
How can they afford this?
"We can't afford not to," Schultz said. "But we don't take on more than we can physically care for. It's heartbreaking to say no, but there is a limit."
They've turned down 14 or 15 monkeys since moving to Longview. She said they have to budget to operate the sanctuary as if her husband's income were their only financial support.
"Some people do this and can't say no to anything, and then the monkeys end up in just as bad a situation as they came from," she said.
People can support their charity in many ways.
"We're not government-funded, but we rely heavily on public donations," she said.
Local businesses have donated or given them discounts on food and materials, children have come to do community service projects, and all their neighbors want to help, she said. And Lowe's Home Improvement put them on its "Hero Project" list.
"They're building our special needs area, and they're bringing volunteers to plant a garden to put up produce for the winter," she said. "And a Girl Scout troop came up and painted picnic tables."
"We've gotten such huge support from the local community," she said. "I sat down one day and just cried."
The Web site gives opportunities for donors to sponsor individual monkeys. Donations of produce (favorites are zucchini and wormy apples), educational toys, labor and time are always appreciated. It's a great learning facility for students of veterinary science or photography, she said.
She hopes to attract people who want to take over caring for the monkeys after she and her husband are gone.
"It's important that the monkeys don't respond to just one person," she said. "If this keeps going, we need the monkeys to be comfortable with other people. We want people interested in succeeding, in becoming as involved as we are."
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