WAYSTATION DISPUTE ENDS; CHIMPS GET NEW HOME.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

TUJUNGA - The Wildlife Waystation began moving 24 chimpanzees Wednesday from their home for seven years in a ramshackle barn into shiny new cages, ending a yearlong standoff with county regulators over the operation of the animal sanctuary.

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and other top officials brokered a compromise in June, a month after a Superior Court judge ordered the cages completed.

``The county cannot be a part of keeping animals in inhumane conditions and that's what was happening,'' District Attorney Steve Cooley said during a news conference at the Waystation, in the Angeles National Forest. ``It was going no place fast except downhill before our involvement.''

Waystation officials said transferring the chimps to their new $200,000 home is a major step toward reopening the 600-animal facility, possibly in early 2004. It has been closed to visitors and new rescues since September 2001 because of animal-welfare violations.

The chimps had been housed for seven years in a old barn, divided into cages with chain-link fence. It was the source of some of the sanctuary's most serious animal-welfare violations and one of the main reasons the Waystation lost its state and federal animal rehabilitation and exhibition permits.

Waystation founder Martine Colette recalled how she quickly converted the barn into animal cages back in 1995, after getting a call from a doctor at the New York University School of Medicine who was trying to find a home for 33 chimpanzees being retired from medical research.

With just a week before the chimps arrived, she installed chain-link fencing in an old barn on Waystation property, planning to quickly raise money to build proper cages.

``I never knew I would make those chimps live in that barn for seven years,'' she said.

Construction on new cages began in 1996, but was halted when officials discovered the project encroached 20 feet onto Angeles National Forest land - the first in a series of missteps and problems at the controversial sanctuary.

The state closed the Waystation temporarily in April 2000 for water quality and cage violations.

Last November, Colette admitted to nearly 300 animal-welfare violations and agreed to a suspension of her U.S. Department of Agriculture exhibition license until the violations are corrected. Many of the violations centered on the unsafe chimp cages.

However, work on the new cages stalled when a county task force said the Waystation would have to first complete an environmental review and get building permits. At the time, county officials said the Waystation was asking for special treatment and exceptions to county regulations.

``We make exceptions all the time,'' Cooley said, saying county officials had put too many hurdles in front of the Waystation.

With the chimp transfer nearly complete, the sanctuary now must install a water tank, widen a road, and improve its potable water supply and sanitation facilities to resolve other violations.

California Department of Fish and Game officials will visit the Waystation in early August and conduct the sanctuary's first cage-by-cage inspection in more than three years.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Anher Flores feeds cake to a chimp at the Wildlife Waystation, where new chimpanzee cages were unveiled Wednesday to replace makeshift cages built in 1995 in an old barn. The substandard cages were the source of complaints by county officials, who withdrew the Waystation's exhibition rights.

(2) New Wildlife Waystation cages feature an aerial tunnel that chimps can use to go from one section to another. The movement of chimps from substandard cages has already begun.

(3) Wildlife Waystation founder Martine Colette appeared with Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley for unveiling of new chimp cages.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer