Another sad passing to report of a former WAO chimp. According to Save the Chimps Facebook today, Katherine passed away on 1.18.12 "as a result of complications related to stroke and heart disease." Here is a link to their website honoring Katherine's passing:
Katherine was born June 5, 1984 at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), a lab in New York State that closed its doors in the late 1990s.
We have no records of her life there. However, we do know that the chimps at LEMSIP were typically housed alone for most of their lives in a 5’ x 5’ x 7’ cage suspended off of the floor like a birdcage and frequently anesthetized for research protocols.
When LEMSIP closed, Katherine was selected to move to a facility known as Wild Animal Orphanage (WAO) in San Antonio, TX. However, WAO did not yet have a facility available for Katherine and the other chimps chosen to move to WAO. Katherine was sent to New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) on May 16, 1996. Again, no records were received to indicate what her life was like there. On October 19, 2000, Katherine was transferred to WAO, which had constructed a living area for her and other rescued chimps. There Katherine lived in a small group of former LEMSIP chimps who, like her, had been waiting at NIRC for retirement.
Katherine resided at WAO for more than ten years. WAO went bankrupt, however, and sought placement for its residents, which included monkeys, tigers, lions, bears, and chimpanzees. Save the Chimps was able to rescue eleven chimpanzees from Wild Animal Orphanage. Katherine and her friends Late, Wally, Mandingo, Tina, Kayla, and Katina moved to Save the Chimps’ New Mexico location on March 10, 2011 to be integrated into a larger group of chimpanzees. There they met Kaleb, Marc, Dwight, Ace, Oliver, Tyra, Comet, Pam, and Lisa. On August 25, 2011, Katherine and her family arrived at their island home in Florida. Katherine loved the island and her new found freedom, and often refused to come indoors. Her place was on the grass, the rolling hills, and shaded platforms of her new home. Although we did not know Katherine for long, her strength and beauty quickly endeared her to us, and her absence is deeply felt.
If only Save the Chimps knew what kind of life poor Katherine suffered at the WAO. And of courses, the WAO did not maintain any comprehensive records on its animals--funny how that was glossed over in the above obit. The WAO chimps probably didn't have any "records" seeing how the the animals (including chimps) did not receive regular (or otherwise) vet care as they should have--after all, the chimps had "nurse" Asvestas and her "nurses aides" Mary & Michelle Reininger! Records show the "girls" practiced medicine without a license, and yet no one seemed to care that they failed miserably (see Amanda's story as just one example).
As to the missing LEMSIP records--I have to wonder if some type of records were sent to the WAO, but for some reason they were either destroyed (seeing how the WAO did not believe in animal records keeping) or if they are still floating. If the Reiningers really cared about the chimps, they would have demanded the records from the former facility and had them transfered to Talley Road. I guess we will never know the truth behind the missing records.
Regardless, Katherine deserved better and I am so happy she died "free" at Save the Chimps, enjoying life on her island and not in an old WAO cage with concrete-like hard ground with sharp rocks, no trees or shrubs, no soft grass, and no enrichment. Her life is to be celebrated. There has been too much mourning over the loss of so many former WAO animals. It's time to be grateful she got to see paradise on Earth before she went to Heaven. God Bless Katherine for she was truly loved and she died happy.
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