By CHUCK SCHOFFNER
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Warning lights flashed atop four police cars as the caravan wound its way up the driveway in a procession fit for a foreign potentate. At long last, Azy and Indah had arrived. They even flew through a hurricane to get here.
The brother and sister orangutans are the first two residents at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, where scientists will study the behavior and learning capabilities of four types of great apes.
They left Washington, D.C., by chartered jet early Tuesday afternoon, riding in specially designed crates that handlers call "transportation suites."
"It was easier than expected, very smooth," said Dr. Rob Shumaker, who'll direct the orangutan research at the center and who accompanied the apes on the flight. "It's the smoothest move of great apes I've ever been involved with."
The pilots were forced to fly through the remnants of Hurricane Jeanne, but "we barely felt it," Shumaker said. "I didn't even know we'd gone through it until after it happened."
Azy, the male, and Indah ate fruit and drank lemonade during the 2 1/2-hour flight. They also chewed gum to help their ears pop. The two had been living at the National Zoo, where Shumaker began working with them in 1995.
Once in Des Moines, a truck with a Great Ape Trust sign and pictures of the two taped to the side drove them to the center, a 200-acre site along the Des Moines River southeast of the downtown area.
The crates then were wheeled into the building where Azy and Indah will live and work with Shumaker. Among those helping push was Ted Townsend, whose $10 million donation got the project going.
Townsend, whose family owns an engineering company in Des Moines, said he envisions the center being as significant in ape research as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts is to undersea studies.
"This will bring the discipline of great ape research to a new level of excellence," he said.
When finished, the center will have bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas along with the orangutans.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Warning lights flashed atop four police cars as the caravan wound its way up the driveway in a procession fit for a foreign potentate. At long last, Azy and Indah had arrived. They even flew through a hurricane to get here.
The brother and sister orangutans are the first two residents at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, where scientists will study the behavior and learning capabilities of four types of great apes.
They left Washington, D.C., by chartered jet early Tuesday afternoon, riding in specially designed crates that handlers call "transportation suites."
"It was easier than expected, very smooth," said Dr. Rob Shumaker, who'll direct the orangutan research at the center and who accompanied the apes on the flight. "It's the smoothest move of great apes I've ever been involved with."
The pilots were forced to fly through the remnants of Hurricane Jeanne, but "we barely felt it," Shumaker said. "I didn't even know we'd gone through it until after it happened."
Azy, the male, and Indah ate fruit and drank lemonade during the 2 1/2-hour flight. They also chewed gum to help their ears pop. The two had been living at the National Zoo, where Shumaker began working with them in 1995.
Once in Des Moines, a truck with a Great Ape Trust sign and pictures of the two taped to the side drove them to the center, a 200-acre site along the Des Moines River southeast of the downtown area.
The crates then were wheeled into the building where Azy and Indah will live and work with Shumaker. Among those helping push was Ted Townsend, whose $10 million donation got the project going.
Townsend, whose family owns an engineering company in Des Moines, said he envisions the center being as significant in ape research as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts is to undersea studies.
"This will bring the discipline of great ape research to a new level of excellence," he said.
When finished, the center will have bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas along with the orangutans.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.