Flood recovery efforts at Great Ape Trust continue at an impressive pace. When the Floods of ‘08 inundated the 230-acre campus in June, portions of the public viewing area near the orangutan home were destroyed.

This week, workers with Handy Guy construction of Des Moines began replacing the wooden planks of the seats. Despite these efforts, public visits to Great Ape Trust will not resume this fall due to the loss of our administrative offices.

Photos: Jason Northway cuts wooden slats for the seating area while Matt Coleman nails them into place.

Dr. Serge Wich, a Great Ape Trust of Iowa scientist and researcher who has spent much of his professional career studying wild orangutans, wrote a piece titled “The Ethical Value of the Forest” for the the Arcus Foundation’s annual report for 2007 distributed this week.

In the essay, Wich challenges readers to view the forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the only places on Earth where rapidly disappearing orangutans can still be found, in both economic and ethical terms. Forest decimation is the primary cause of dire situation facing orangutans — at most, there are only 6,600 Sumatran and 54,000 Bornean orangutans — but there are still opportunities to conserve this magnificent species and thier once pristine habitat, Wich wrote.

The Arcus Foundation is a grant-making organization established in 2000 by Jon Stryker, heir to the Stryker Corp., a Kalamzzoo, Mich., medical technology company, to advance his interests in gay rights and great ape conservation. He has invested more than $247 million of his approximately $2 billion fortune in the foundation, and plans to give it another $120 million over the next few years.

To download the report in which Wich’s essay appears, click here. It is found on Page 6 of the pdf file. Also of interest is an essay by titled “The Moral Status of Animals” by Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. That essay originally appeared in the Feb. 3, 2006 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Download it here.

Photo: A wild adult female orangutan. 

The success of our Third Annual Bowling for Apes conservation fund-raiser depends on the hard work and generosity of a lot of people — both on our staff and in the Greater Des Moines business community. The following businesses and organizations either donated items for the silent auction or supported the event in other ways:

Adam’s Aquatics, AMF Bowling Center, Applied Arts and Technology, Blank Park Zoo, Business Publications Corp., Centro, CLD Designs, Court Avenue Brewing Co., Des Moines Botanical Center, Dos Rios, Elements Ltd., Endangered Species Chocolate, Eyebeads & Gemstones, Fair World Gallery, Fleur Cinema & Cafe and Halo Salon.

Also, Iowa Cubs, LaMie Bakery, Padma Gallery, Pegasus Gallery, Pink Fine Stationary, Renewal by Anderson, Robin’s Wood Over Grill, Rock Bottom Brewery, Smash, The Iowa Clinic, Trilix Marketing Group, and Whatta Dish.

Those who supported Bowling for Apes should feel proud that they are part of something very important — helping Great Ape Trust meet its commitment to help rapidly disappearing wild great apes. Thank you.

For more about Bowling for Apes, click here.

Shane Weldon, a new public safety officer at Great Ape Trust, can only imagine what Azy, a 30-year-old male orangutan living at The Trust, is thinking as Weldon checks the temperature of the orangutan building as part of his regular rounds.“You can tell he is thinking about you when you stand there and look at him. I almost expect him to say something to me,” said Weldon, whose love for animals drew him to Great Ape Trust.

“I am fascinated by the things we are able to learn from great apes and the amount of information we can impart to them,” he said. “I believe Great Ape Trust is a very unique place — I know this is not news to people who have worked here longer, but it is one of the reasons I wanted to be here.”

In his spare time, Weldon enjoys outdoor activities, such as target shooting, a sport he’d like to pursue competitively some day. His true passion, though is martial arts.

“I have been training for 14 years in various disciplines, and my black is in Danzan Ryu-Jujutsu,” he said. “I enjoy training and teaching others, and my goal is to get my own school.”

A native of Colorado, he moved to Iowa from Oregon 10 years ago. He sustained a near-fatal accident when he fell while playing basketball between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. He has recovered, but his sense of smell and taste were permanently affected. “I have limited smelling abilities, and everything I eat is sweet,” he said. “It could be worse.”

Weldon has been married for seven years. His wife, Katie, is a sixth-grade mathematics teacher for the Norwalk Community School District. They lost their only child, Taylor Lynn, the Fryn’s Syndrome earlier this year. “It has drawn us closer together as a family,” he said. “A loss like this really puts things into perspective.”

Weldon attended Faith Baptist Bible College for three and one-half years. He said he would like to return to college and complete studies that will prepare him for a career in natural resources.

There was lots to talk on the campus of Great Ape Trust today as a 300-kilowatt emergency generator was installed to provide backup power to the orangutan research building. The five-ton generator was compromised during significant flooding on our campus in mid-June.

First, just having a permanent backup power source available was reason for cheer. It’s crucial to maintaining interior building temperatures and systems during power failures, and its presence, even when it isn’t needed, is reassuring to the caretakers who spend their days keeping the apes well-fed and comfortable.

Second, many of us marveled at the precision with which the crane operator and his ground crew maneuvered the boom, which held the generator in place with four husky U-shaped shackles. Once the generator had been lowered the required 50 or so feet, it took only minor adjustment to fit it onto the bolts — about the size of an adult’s pinky finger — protruding from the concrete slab.

“Sweet balls of fire,” said one of the guys on the ground when the move was complete.

Indeed.

Photos: At top, a large crane from Champion Crane of Des Moines lifts the five-ton emergency generator. At bottom, workers fit the equipment over bolts protruding from a concrete slab.