Several animals, including monkeys, chimpanzees and lemurs, have died at a Texas animal sanctuary due to freezing temperatures and a power outage. According to a statement released by Primarily Primates, the sanctuary affected by the outage, they were not prepared for an outage of the magnitude experienced.
“To be clear, we have never lost power for any significant amount of time, and have never experienced rolling blackouts multiple days without power. So no, we did not have commercial-grade generators to power all of the buildings, enclosures and heated bedrooms on our 78-acre property that would be required during such a catastrophic weather event,” Primarily Primates said in a statement.
Related: Redwoods, condor sanctuary are damaged in California wildfires
The electricity went out at the sanctuary last Monday, forcing staff members to try to capture about 32 animals and herd them into a warmed-up enclosure. Unfortunately, some of the animals proved to be stubborn. At least 12 of the creatures died.
“Some of these lemurs and monkeys would not go in,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, a group that manages the Primarily Primates sanctuary. “Alpha monkeys would not go into their heated bedrooms. Their subordinates went in. We lost a few monkeys that way.”
One of the animals that died was the sanctuary’s 58-year-old chimpanzee, Violet. Although most of the animals are now in safe, warm enclosures, the sanctuary and the San Antonio Zoo have been calling on locals to donate items such as flashlights, blankets, generator fuel and other necessities.
“We have been inundated with so much love and support and we can’t begin to thank everyone enough,” the sanctuary said. “We now have more than a dozen loaned small generators up and running along with numerous propane heaters keeping all our animals on the property safe and warm.”
As power is restored to Texas, the sanctuary plans to put any additional donations toward generators of its own in case of future emergencies. Primarily Primates is home to animals formerly used and often neglected in labs, the entertainment industry and the exotic pet trade.
Via Huffington Post
Image via Gerrit Bril
