The Great Ape Trust of Iowa/Kanzi

GREAT APE TRUST OF IOWA

The only other troop of bonbos in America lives at The Great Ape Trust of Iowa.  This is not a visitor facility or a zoo but a research centre where they help apes and have discovered amazing things about their abilities.  There are tours available at the Great Ape Trust for donors  but you need to apply to be eligible and you need to have the tour arranged well in advance.  They have a great website at
http://www.greatapetrust.org/

The Great Ape Trust is home to an amazing troop of bonobos (and orangutans named: Azy, Knobi, Allie).  The bonobos are Matata, Kanzi, Panbanisha, Nyota, Elikya, Maisha, and Nathan.  The oldest male P-Suke was a wonderful individual but he died in 2006.  Everyone who knew him still misses him.  There are links to pages about each of them at the Great Ape Trust Website.
Kanzi and Panbanisha have been the subjects of dozens of scientific papers because of their remarkable abilities with language.  Kanzi’s story is incredible.  I wrote a speech about him. You can read the speech on my blog.

Meet Kanzi
Kanzi, 25, male bonobo

Nobody can know about Kanzi and not realize that bonobos are extremely intelligent and must be saved.
Two books about Kanzi are Kanzi: Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind and Kanzi’s Primal Language. They are scientific books so not easy for kids to read.  Dr. Sue Savage Rumbaugh is the first author of both these books and you can read about her on my Fun Stuff page.
Kanzi not only has amazing language abilities he can also make his own tools, cook his own food, and do many other things.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THE RESEARCH AT THE GREAT APE TRUST IS THAT THE BONOBOS GET TO DECIDE WHAT THEY WANT TO DO. Rather than force the bonobos to do things, they let the bonobos learn as they wish to learn.  It is a great place.  You can read about some of the researchers at the Great Ape Trust in the Heroes section of my Fun Stuff page.

There are several books about bonobos.  One that has lots of information and many good pictures is Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape by Frans de Waal and Frans Lanting

Great Ape
Trust sponsors Bowling for Apes, please see my Bowling for Apes page

PLEASE REMEMBER TO SIGN MY GUESTBOOK AND IF YOU WANT TO SPONSOR ME FOR “BOWLING FOR APES.” 
No sponsorship is too small or too big.  Every donation and every person counts!    PLEASE EMAIL ME AT apeaware@gmail.com