Rob Shumaker, a member of the Orangutan Conservancy’s Board of Directors, almost single-handedly shut down the use of orangutans in the entertainment industry, a feat akin to ‘brokering peace talks.’ Here’s how he did it.

Rob Shumaker, generally a confident kind of guy, was nervous. He was about to cold-call the owners of wildlife animals used in movies and TV shows and ask them to shutter the portion of their business that supplied orangutans.

That’s not all. He also wanted them to donate the apes to Great Ape Trust of Iowa.

“I had heard through the grapevine that they might be willing to give up their orangutans,” says Shumaker, Ph.D., director of the orangutan research program at Great Ape Trust, a scientific research facility in Des Moines dedicated to the study of primate intelligence. “I thought, ‘What the heck. I might as well ask. I’ll just call them.’

“But then I got cold feet.”

His trepidation is understandable. After all, Shumaker had long been a vocal opponent of using great apes in entertainment and a passionate advocate of animal welfare. Overall, the relationship between the conservation community and private great ape owners had always been strained and frequently hostile.

But Shumaker didn’t let his jitters stop him. The result? Last summer and fall – less than a year after the initial contact – three of the orangutans owned by Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife arrived at their new home at Great Ape Trust, whose mission includes providing sanctuary to great apes. The remaining five animals are expected to arrive this spring. Because the Los Angeles-based company was the sole supplier of orangutans on the West Coast, the owners’ decision to donate the apes draws the curtain on orangutans in Hollywood entertainment.

What’s more, the deal was done without confrontation or rancor; in fact, Shumaker now considers co-owners Donna and Steve Martin (not the actor) friends. Observers say this kind of an agreement is unprecedented and that Shumaker is the only one who could’ve pulled it off.

“The deal almost fell apart 10 times, but when there were hitches, Rob would come back to the table determined to work it out,” says Doug Cress, vice president of development for the Orangutan Conservancy in Los Angeles, who was involved in the negotiations. “He’s a brilliant facilitator. Rob could see the land mines down the road and figure out how to avoid them.

“There’s nothing about Rob that’s threatening,” Cress adds. “He has a calming influence on people.”

“It’s almost like brokering peace talks-that’s how I would describe what Rob did,” says Tom Colvin, executive director of the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, who worked with Shumaker to promote state legislation, passed in 2007, that prohibits the private ownership of apes and other wild animals in Iowa. “Rob’s the real deal.”

Shumaker’s attachment to orangutans stretches as far back as he can remember. “I really have no recollection of wanting to do anything else other than work with apes,” says the 45-year-old Shumaker, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., area.

In high school, he began volunteering as a caretaker at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, where he met Azy, then a 5-year-old male orangutan. The two formed a close bond they still share today at Great Ape Trust. “We’ve gone through life together,” Shumaker says of the now 31-year-old orangutan. “I love Azy not because he’s an orangutan, but because of who he is; I love him for his gentleness, his patience, his intelligence. He’s irreplaceable.”

Back then, the way to work with any animal was to become a veterinarian, Shumaker says, so after graduating from high school, he moved to Athens, Ga., for pre-veterinary studies at the University of Georgia. Raised by a single mother who also had his sister to support, Shumaker paid for his education on his own, “and the debt that was accruing scared me,” he recalls. So after two years, he moved back to Washington and started attending George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where he eventually earned a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in biology.

Back in his hometown, he began “reading everything I could on apes’ mental abilities,” says Shumaker, today a widely respected evolutionary biologist who specializes in researching how orangutans use symbols to communicate. “I realized veterinary medicine wasn’t my passion.”

In 1993, after having several positions at the National Zoo for around 10 years, he became a biologist there. He helped design the zoo’s “Think Tank Exhibit,” an innovative display where visitors not only can view the orangutans but also can learn about behavior and cognition and watch the scientists at work. Shumaker was the exhibit’s resident scientist for nine years.

Shumaker “pioneered the way orangutans are kept in captivity,” says Benjamin Beck, Ph.D., director of conservation at Great Ape Trust, who has known Shumaker since 1984 and previously worked with him at the National Zoo. “He’s been insistent that orangutans at zoos be given vertical space, since in the wild they’re arboreal. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been a spokesperson for the animals.”

Shumaker and his wife, Anne, met at the zoo-she was a volunteer-and they married in 2000. “I thought I’d spend my entire career in D.C. and at the Smithsonian,” says Shumaker. “I loved it there.”

Then Ted Townsend came calling. The Des Moines businessman, founder of Great Ape Trust, asked Shumaker to move to the city and join the organization. Although Shumaker liked Des Moines-he had done some consulting work for Townsend-he said no. “I didn’t want to leave D.C.,” Shumaker says.

But Townsend didn’t give up. Eventually, his persistence, combined with some changes at the National Zoocompelled Shumaker to reconsider. During a 2003 visit to Des Moines with Anne, Shumaker’s reluctance to leave Washington was transformed into an eagerness to embrace Iowa. “The visit couldn’t have been better,” says Shumaker. “There were opportunities here, and we met a lot of terrific people.”

Azy followed Shumaker to Great Ape Trust as did Indah, Azy’s sister, who also was at the National Zoo. Indah died shortly after arriving in 2004, a loss Shumaker describes as devastating for both him and Azy. “Azy and I went through extreme grief,” he recalls. “He was totally lost, and I was totally lost.”

Knobi, a 20-year-old female from Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and Allie, a 15-year-old female from the Denver Zoo, moved to the ape trust in 2005. Shumaker primarily works with Azy; the orangutan uses symbols, presented on a computer screen, to identify objects such as numbers, names and tools. Shumaker emphasizes that he and others at Great Ape Trust view and treat the apes as partners in research, not as subjects. (Great Ape Trust also is home to seven bonobos; eventually, it will include chimpanzees and gorillas, the other two great apes.)

Although his research and outreach efforts kept Shumaker busy, he still thought about orangutans that had appeared in Hollywood productions and in acts in Las Vegas and Branson, Mo. “They disappeared,” says Shumaker. “I kept wondering where they had gone.”

Besides the fact that there have been documented cases of abuse, Shumaker opposes using apes in entertainment for a number of reasons. In show business, baby orangutans usually are taken from their mothers, an emotionally crushing blow to both. “Orangutan mothers devote years to their young and have an intense emotional attachment,” says Shumaker. The mother-child bond, he adds, is typically stronger for orangutans than it is for the other great apesAfter being used as juveniles, orangutans are usually retired from entertainment when they’re around 10.

“What happens to them then?” says Shumaker. “Sometimes they’re moved to substandard facilities.” Orangutans can live more than 50 years in captivity (35-40 years in the wild).

Shumaker also objects to how orangutans are depicted in entertainment. “I resent apes being used as comic relief or to present degenerate human behavior,” he says.

Furthermore, a survey conducted by the ape trust and cited in Science magazine showed that seeing great apes in advertisements or entertainment leads people to wrongly believe that they’re not endangered, Shumaker notes. (See story, facing page.)

For their part, Steve and Donna Martin had grown weary of the controversy surrounding their profession and were ready to stop supplying orangutans, Steve Martin says. “A lot of people have a misunderstanding of what we do and how we do it,” he says.

Seeking the best home for their orangutans, the Martins thoroughly checked out Great Ape Trust before agreeing to move their apes here, adds Martin, who personally transported the first three apes to Des Moines. “We talked to a lot of other people about it,” he says. “After we saw (Great Ape Trust), we knew it’d be a good place for them.”

Shumaker says working with the Martins forced him to re-evaluate his notions about private owners. “The situation isn’t nearly as black and white as I thought before I got to know the Martins,” says Shumaker. “It was wrong of me to assume all the people in that industry were the same. There’s a spectrum of people and a range of behaviors in any profession.” He adds that he’s not opposed to other animals, such as cats and dogs, being a part of the entertainment industry.

Over the course of the negotiations, the relationship between Shumaker and the Martins “transitioned from neutral to being friends, and I’m proud of that,” he says.

Though the Martins and Great Ape Trust agreed not to reveal the terms of the agreement publicly, “buying the apes was never a part of the discussion,” Shumaker says. The Martins donated the orangutans.

Bringing the orangutans to Des Moines “is an extension of Rob’s most endearing personality trait-an intensely strong yet balanced concern for animal welfare,” says Beck. “He’s passionate, but he’s not rabid or unreasonable.”

Schumaker expects the former entertainment orangutans will live the rest of their lives at Great Ape Trust’s 230-acre campus in southeast Des Moines. And he plans to be right there beside them. “This is huge for me,” he says. “It’s a lifetime commitment.”

Living in Des Moines has made that commitment even easier for Shumaker. He and Anne live in the Waterbury neighborhood with their children, 7-year-old William and 3-year-old Carly, along with three dogs, two cats, three parrots, and “one very large iguana,” all rescue animals. So how was it adjusting to Des Moines after living in Washington, D.C.? “I get that question all the time,” says Shumaker. “It’s been the easiest adjustment in the world. Besides getting married, (moving here) is the best decision I’ve ever made. We can’t imagine ever leaving.”

(Source: DSM magazine)