Chimpanzees have a way of stealing the show, even when they’re not on the agenda.
That’s why the most talked-about item from today’s meeting of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors is likely to be a resident’s concern about the primates at Windy Oaks Animal Farm in Mechanicsville.
Carl Davis, who spoke during Citizens' Time, is a neighbor of the private zoo, from which six chimps escaped on July 21.
During the incident, Windy Oaks owner Curtis Shepperson was able to get the four females back inside but called for help to recapture the two males. One male chimp remained out overnight.
Davis said he received a letter from Shepperson saying that Shepperson has applied for a conditional use permit to keep four of the chimps on his farm. Two of the chimps from the summer have been returned to other owners, Davis said.
Shepperson has had primates at his farm since the 1990s and has allowed groups to visit.
Davis asked the supervisors to “give serious thought to this permit because if anything serious happens as a result of these animals getting loose, the county will also be deemed culpable.”
After the meeting, Davis said noise is also an issue because he can hear the monkeys from his property. Escaped primates have strayed onto his property, which adjoins Windy Oaks. The previous summer, he said, a 4½-foot spider monkey followed him on his tractor. When animal control officers and people from the zoo came to his house, the monkey opened its mouth as if to bite and Davis saw “canine teeth much longer and larger than any large breed of dog,” Davis wrote in a letter to the editor.
“I feel it was ill-advised for you to place a facility of this nature in rural Hanover County,” Davis said to the board. “It has become apparent that the county is not monitoring this situation close enough. There have been several escapes and the owner has been less than professional in the way in which he has aided in the capture.”
If Shepperson closes the facility to the public, Davis said, “it does away with any need to have these animals at this location, if indeed there was ever a need in the first place.”
A telephone message seeking comment from Shepperson was not returned.
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