by
Jane Dewar
Last
week another major bit of customized steelwork arrived – the stairs for the
two-story building, leading from the keeper food-prep area on the ground floor
to the researcher offices over-looking the 8.5 acre habitat of Phase I.
Finally, the GH principals – Pete, Steuart and I – saw the habitat
viewed from the second floor and we were all blown away by the scope and
splendor of it! We can take photos
and video of the place, but all visitors agree, nothing begins to show the
real beauty of this place.
We’re
taking more time and spending more money to have high quality, custom-made steel produced
locally by David Stites and his crew at SEMCO, a Blue Ridge company. The photo
on the left shows that David shares our sense of serious zaniness, as his authentic,
gorilla-faced welding helmet is modeled by our friend Jim Davis (modeling a GH
t-shirt, no less!). The photo on the right shows the workshop with cagework in
the foreground while the center
photo is David with his pride and joy, or as I call it "an old
truck." 
Once SEMCO manufactures
the steel pieces for the villas and various doors and gates for Phase I, the steel then goes to Atlanta where
it's galvanized for long, rust free
life.
Steel for the first villa should be ready by the end of March, which is
behind our desired schedule, but still hopefully in time to be ready for
inspections, etc. required before we can bring in our first gorilla guest by
the summer or fall.
Many
ask if we have any specific gorillas in mind for our first residents and the
answer is “yes.” However,
since the ultimate decision will be that of the SSP and zoos, we will not be
announcing which gorillas will be coming to GH until all the federal, local,
zoo and miscellaneous licenses and approvals are in and the gorilla/s is/are
here. We’re still not looking
for publicity and since we’re not open to the public, we hope our first
gorilla guests will come with little to no fanfare.
We’re
often asked why Gorilla Haven is just for gorillas, especially when there are
so many other animals, like chimpanzees, in need. While we’re maintaining
our species-specific goals, that doesn’t mean we don’t care or do things
to help other species – including chimpanzees and humans! In 1997 when GH was in the international media spotlight, we
received several phone calls from people offering to help us with money,
support and land. One phone call,
in particular, was from someone in Shrevesport, Louisiana, offering us about
200 acres. I told them we
weren’t interested in moving, but that I knew someone who might be
interested…
Check out the Chimp Haven website at http://www.chimphaven.org for details of the results of this phone conversation, since Chimp Haven is now the proud recipient of that land and support of the people of Shrevesport! One of our Advisory Board members, Dr. Linda Brent, is the head of Chimp Haven and this past weekend she re-visited, with her colleagues, including Linda Koebner, a pioneer in chimp rehabilitation and popular environmental writer and Nevin and Gail Nash, zoo and landscape designers of Ursa International. Nevin took some wonderful photos of their visit on Sunday (before the stairs), which can be seen at his website’s page. http://www.ursainternational.org/Gorillahaven.html .
One of our personal goals is to inspire others to do their bit to make a difference in the world, whether it's mentoring a child, volunteering at a hospital or animal shelter, or just being an active and generous member of the world's community. We're not the only people on the planet with the resources to build GH, yet we are the only people on the planet doing this, and we're fortunate to have the resources as well as the passion and expertise to help us achieve our dreams. Whatever you do, if we all leave the world a little bit better than we found it, just think of the possibilities!