What the Experts Say

Behavioral and veterinary experts have visited Primarily Primates since the Ohio State University chimpanzees were sent there. They've been appalled Here's what they had to say:

Mel Richardson, D.V.M.

"Almost all of the chimp enclosures and monkey cages were bare concrete, with metal and/or wood climbing structures. … [T]he remainder of the chimp enclosures were stark naked cages. These primates have very little if any enrichment. They have nothing to do—they exist, but little else. …

Many primates at PPI live on cold concrete floors in cages devoid of any type of comfort or mental stimulation.

"Sheba is alarmingly thin to the point of being almost emaciated. According to the OSU caregivers, she appears to have lost 20 to 30 pounds. I would estimate that this constitutes a 20 to 30 percent loss of her total body mass. The fact that she has deteriorated to this point in such a short period of time (four months) suggests that her health is declining at a frightening pace. Even her voice is weak. …

"Without immediate intervention, it is my professional opinion that Sarah and Sheba will die—they will literally starve to death. …

"Darrell is being housed in an indoor enclosure with his only light coming from 2-inch cracks under the guillotine doors to the proposed outdoor cages. … The conditions of Darrell's confinement are cruel by any measure and are a violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act. …

"Enrichment—there is none to speak of. Without enrichment to stimulate these highly intelligent animals, PPI is no better than a warehouse to hold these animals as they die. This is neither a sanctuary nor a place of safety. …

"I counted four OSU chimps and three PPI chimps with respiratory infections. One of the LEMSIP females had a deep productive cough."

John A. Fischer, Former Supervisor of Animal Care Staff at PPI

"PPI did not have a veterinarian on site, and animals received almost no veterinary care even for life-threatening situations. During my tenure at PPI, none of the animals were seen by a veterinarian for annual exams and none were vaccinated. …

"[T]wo capuchin monkeys got frostbite because the heater in their sleeping box quit working in the middle of the night. … I discovered them in the morning with open wounds … at least one of their tails was hanging on by a thin piece of flesh. …

The raw, pink skin of this capuchin monkey's untreated frostbite wound is visible through the bars of the cage.

I immediately asked Mr. Swett for permission to take the animals to a veterinarian. His response was, 'We go through this every year—eventually their hands and feet will heal and their tails will just fall off and they will be fine.' He was wrong. The next day I found one of the capuchins in his small dirty sleeping box unconscious. Only then was I allowed to take the monkey to the vet, where he died. …

A capuchin monkey huddles pitifully in a cold enclosure, shortly before dying of frostbite.

"Late in the summer of 2003, when I informed Mr. Swett of an injury to the front leg of a Patagonian cavy, he made a comment about the 'money factor' and had a contractor named Mike Wilcox shoot the animal. The cavy was not seen by a veterinarian first. The cavy was then fed to a recently acquired African lion. …

"A grizzly bear named Zelda had cancer in her mouth, and although she was active and eating well, she was killed by gunshot to the head in the summer of 2003. Zelda was shot rather than humanely euthanized because Mr. Swett said, 'A bullet is cheaper.' The shot was fired from a distance of approximately 25 feet and did not kill Zelda immediately. I discovered her still breathing and bleeding from the head. She languished for approximately 45 minutes before dying. …

"In August 2003, Nico Blue was born to a chimpanzee named ShuShu. … Mr. Swett deemed it necessary to remove Nico from his mother and hand-raise him. The baby was strong and healthy, and Mike, one of the animal care staff, had a very difficult time pulling Nico off of ShuShu. Nico screamed and clung to his mother. He was taken to Mr. Swett's house, where he soon became very ill. Dr. Vice determined that he had pneumonia. … I was very worried about this course of treatment since Mr. Swett was likely to be doing all this while highly intoxicated. Every time I went to Mr. Swett's house the baby was [lying] on the couch or in a plastic box with no blanket or heating pad to keep him warm. He died within 10 days of Mr. Swett taking him home. Mr. Swett walked into the office one day, dropped a garbage bag on the table, and said, 'He died.' Nico's body was in the garbage bag. …

"Most enclosures have inadequate heat. The animals are given no blankets or nesting materials to help keep them warm and they [lie] on concrete floors, wooden or metal platforms, or wire-bottomed cages. Many buildings and/or night boxes are heated with makeshift electric or kerosene heaters. … Many of the chimpanzees chose to sleep outside, no matter how cold it was, in order to avoid the kerosene fumes, the rats, and the roaches. …

"Shortly before the impending arrival of a macaque named Yvette, I expressed my concern to Mr. Swett about the fact that we did not have enough space or other resources to continue to accept additional animals. I suggested that if we were going to accept Yvette, … we send some other animals to facilities that could better provide for them. Mr. Swett said, "I will kill every animal on the property before I let them leave.'"

Terry I. Minchew, Full-Time Volunteer at PPI

"PPI did not have a program of ongoing veterinary care, [PPI's main veterinarian] … had no regular schedule to visit PPI and was not available for emergencies because she worked full-time, including every other weekend. …

"None of the staff was trained to sedate animals, so when an animal had to be taken off site for veterinary care, the method of isolating the animal was to spray him/her with a high-pressure water hose until they entered a lock-out area and then … to spray him/her until they entered a squeeze cage. … This left the animal wet, which was especially detrimental in the winter since the animals were often transported in the back of an open pick-up truck. …

"Sydney, a 27-year-old chimpanzee, died in the spring of 2005 from a suspected upper-respiratory infection. He would never go into the night houses and stayed out during all weather. Sydney would perch at the top of the enclosure and simply sit hunched over in the rain. Despite the staff begging and explaining to Wally how sick Sydney was, Wally never came to check Sydney and he was not seen by a veterinarian. I stayed with Sydney one night until 2 a.m. and squeezed a blanket and sweater through the cage mesh for him in order to give him some comfort. At 6 a.m. the next morning, Sydney died. …

"Wally continued to take in new animals despite the fact that PPI was chronically understaffed and lacked adequate enclosures and resources to care for the animals who were already there. The average size of the animal care staff was four people. Those four individuals were charged with providing care for the more than 1,000 animals housed at PPI. To make matters worse, Wednesdays and Sundays were designated as 'half days,' meaning that on those days only two staff members were on site to feed and provide care for the animals. …

"Four kinkajous were kept in a wire cage that measured approximately 2 feet by 6 feet by 4 feet inside an old, dark building for approximately six months after they arrived. …

"Wally Swett purchased animals even though we couldn't properly care for the ones already at PPI. Wally purchased a baby chimpanzee named Emma. Wally told me that he paid $30,000 for Emma."

Lorraine Smith, North Carolina Zoo Curator for Mammals

"I found Sarah to be thin and [she] appeared to have lost a significant amount of weight in a relatively short period of time, evidenced by the loose, wrinkled skin on her arms. Her skin was visibly dry. … Significant weight loss in an aged chimpanzee, like Sarah, is cause for concern and the reasons should be investigated more fully. Chimpanzees are normally reactive to strangers, more so with a number of strangers, and we toured as a largish group. Despite this, Sarah was quite subdued in her behavior. …

Sarah, the oldest of the OSU chimpanzees.

"Given the current staffing and lack of an enrichment program, it is not possible to meet the psychological needs of the OSU chimps, capuchin monkeys, or any of the primates housed at PPI. …

"[T]he PPI facilities and husbandry protocols have become outdated over the course of many years. In the best of circumstances, it will require several years to turn around the facility. For this reason, in my opinion, the OSU chimps are best served by transferring them to an alternate facility. Once accomplished, attention must turn to the other primates, carnivores, birds, domestic dogs, and other species housed at PPI with a goal of raising care standards to, at the very least, industry minimums."

Todd Bowsher, Ph.D., Court-Appointed Independent Inspector

"The inside holding area of one of the older chimp buildings was found to have the bars, walls, floors, doorframes, etc., covered with roaches. This was not observed in the OSU chimps building, which was cleaned and freshly painted. This caused concern that the OSU chimpanzee building may not be the norm, but a cosmetic quick fix. None of the buildings should be infested with roaches. …

Enclosures are teeming with cockroaches.

"Between two of the buildings was a large body of standing sewage water with a piece of plywood over it for a bridge. There was some effort to pick up the large fecal material before it went into the ground, but the open cesspool proved that a large amount of fecal material made it to the groundwater. The standing sewage water is a concern for disease being vectored to the staff, the chimpanzees, and animals that run loose around the area. …

"Many facilities scatter small food items in the grass or, if on concrete, in wood wool or hay to encourage foraging behavior. These pens are bare of all substrate or bedding material at this facility. The bedding is important not only for hiding forage items, but [also because] chimps will use hay or wood wool or other bedding materials to make their night nest, giving them the opportunity to exhibit natural behaviors. The chimps at Primarily Primates have none of these opportunities. …

"The number of chimpanzee deaths that occur at this facility apparently without necropsies to determine cause of death [is] a concern. In 1999, 32 Air Force chimps were brought to Primarily Primates, and today there are only 16 on site … In the last three years, 11 chimps have died, including three [who] were babies or stillborn and two females that died the same day in 2004. … During this three-year period, there have been about 124 deaths of mammals, mostly monkeys, and not including birds. …

"The OSU 6-year-olds are kept with two other similar[ly] aged chimps in a cage behind the garage at the director's house. There is little to no shade in the cage and the small size gravel substrate measured 115°F. …

"It is my opinion … that … Primarily Primates cannot completely meet the health and psychological needs of the seven chimpanzees from Ohio State University."

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