CLE ELUM, Wash. _ The matriarch of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is tired of waiting for her dinner.
Her name is Negra, and she expects to be fed on time. Early is OK, too. So she's peering down from an overhead perch, clapping impatiently as sanctuary co-director Diana Goodrich loads a tray with slices of baked pumpkin, leeks, and bowls of fresh snap peas and pears.
"I know, I know," Goodrich croons.
By the time Goodrich walks the tray to the open-air veranda where the chimps dine during nice weather, all seven of the sanctuary's primate residents are lined up more or less in a row, a phalanx of black fur and smacking, prehensile lips.
Slight and blond, Goodrich leans forward and huffs a chimp-style greeting. She begins threading food a chunk at a time through the bars. Except for a little jostling, the chimps wait their turns.
They know the routine. This has been their home since 2008, when they arrived fearful and scarred from years in the windowless basement of a Pennsylvania lab that rented them out for research.
"We've been incredibly lucky that everyone is still here," she says, passing a chunk of pumpkin to Negra. The oldest at 45, Negra was also the slowest to emerge from her shell, perhaps because she was once kept isolated for 18 months. She's still a loner and likes to hide under a blanket, but she's also forged friendships with other chimps and loves to explore.
"She seemed like such an old lady when she arrived," Goodrich says. "None of us would have guessed she would live this long."
Now, Goodrich and her team are gearing up to provide similar, second chances for up to 15 more chimps. They recently purchased more land, bringing their total to 90 acres. A new addition includes a veterinary clinic and space for chimps to acclimate and get acquainted. The sanctuary hopes to break ground in the spring on a second indoor-outdoor complex.
The expansion comes as chimpanzee research in the United States enters its final chapter. Experiments on mankind's closest relative effectively ended three years ago and, for the first time, more chimpanzees live in sanctuaries than laboratories. The National Institutes of Health will retire all but the frailest of its 257 remaining chimps to a federally funded sanctuary in Louisiana within the next several years. But another 200 or so remain in private research facilities, some awaiting space in sanctuaries, others with their fates undecided.
"If we can do something for any of them, rather than having them die in the laboratories, that's a positive thing," Goodrich says. She's also looking beyond the end game for chimps to an even more daunting goal: extending the sanctuary concept to at least some of the thousands of monkeys that live and die in the service of science at labs across the country _ including the University of Washington.
But that's years down the road. Right now, Goodrich is facing seven antsy chimpanzees eager for dessert.
She hands out small, paper-wrapped packets. These "night bags," filled with nuts, popcorn and dried fruit, are Negra's favorite, and she's not about to save the treat for later. With lips and fingers, the chimp rips away the paper, carefully extracts peanuts and pops them in her shelf of a mouth.
