Great Ape Trust’s online gift store slashes prices 20 percent

Des Moines, Iowa – November 25, 2008 – Nothing says Iowa more uniquely than a holiday gift of a T-shirt or coffee mug featuring two types of great ape, available exclusively at GreatApeStore.org, Great Ape Trust of Iowa’s online shopping venue.

With open prairies instead of rain forest canopies and four distinct seasons instead of equatorial climates, Iowa isn’t a likely place to find great apes – or wasn’t until Des Moines resident Ted Townsend founded Great Ape Trust, a scientific research institute in southeast Des Moines studying the intelligence and behavior of great apes. The Trust currently provides homes for seven bonobos and six orangutans, the most rare of great ape species, and will provide homes for gorillas and chimpanzees when development is complete.

Conversation-starting gifts available at GreatApeStore.org, feature images of four Great Ape Trust residents: the world-famous Kanzi and Panbanisha, both bonobos, and orangutans Azy and Knobi. And, for a limited time, online customers can purchase Great Ape Trust-branded merchandise at a 20 percent savings. To take advantage of the holiday discount, available through Dec. 19, log onto GreatApeStore.org, place your order and type HOLIDAY2008       (all capital letters, no space) in the box marked “coupon code.” To ensure delivery by Christmas, orders must be placed by Dec. 19.

Another idea for the hard-to-buy-for person is a Great Ape Trust gift membership, available at Great Ape Trust’s award-winning Web site, GreatApeTrust.org. Several membership levels are available and include Great Ape Trust merchandise. The top level, a $2,500 Deans membership, includes an assortment of merchandise, two autographed books by Great Ape Trust scientists and a behind-the-scenes small group tour that includes visits to the orangutan and bonobo research laboratories – as well as the satisfaction of knowing that membership dues contribute to a growing body of science about the intelligence of great apes, which are fast disappearing in the wild.

Merchandise at GreatApeStore.org includes limited-edition signed, numbered prints of Pennsylvania artist Sue Buck’s original pastel drawings of Great Ape Trust ape residents Kanzi, Panbanisha, Azy and Knobi. Screen prints of the pastels are also featured on T-shirts. Buy one of your favorite ape, or a shirt that features all four. The Buck images are also available on note cards, coffee mugs and magnets. Books by Great Ape Trust scientists, ball caps, bucket hats, and roomy computer totes made of black canvas with a brown suede Great Ape Trust logo also are available.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility in Des Moines dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence.  When completed, it will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape – bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans – for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.  Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing a unique educational experience about great apes.