Kate Donovan – Behavior Coordinator

by Lindsey Ebert

Project Chimps is excited to announce the promotion of Kate Donovan to the role of Behavior Coordinator.

This month, Project Chimps launched a new Behavior Program led by Kate, who has been working at Project Chimps for nearly three years as a Caregiver and Chimpanzee Care Supervisor. In her new role, she will implement guidelines to improve chimp behavior and quality of life.

Before her time at Project Chimps, Kate was living in Los Angeles, California pursing an acting career and working full-time in IT Management. It didn’t take long for her to realize she wasn’t on the right path.

When faced with the decision of what direction to go next, she asked herself, “what is the most opposite thing I can do?” Having always been an animal-lover, she decided to go back to school and pursue a career in animal behavior. In 2016, Kate graduated from Moorpark College with a degree in Exotic Animal Training and Management.

Her educational background makes Kate uniquely qualified to assess the behavior of the Project Chimps chimpanzees and create paths for improvement. This hands-on behavioral training will help reduce the level of stress put on the chimps for medical procedures.

“The goal is to make it easier to monitor their health in a way that they want to participate in. Anytime you have to anesthetize a chimp, it’s very stressful. I’d like to closely monitor blood pressure urine, blood, and fecal without having a stressful impact on their lives,” said Kate.

In addition to monitoring their health, the new Behavior Program will help train Caregivers to better identify behavioral abnormalities.

“They can’t tell us how they’re feeling, so being able to assess those behaviors and find out how to help them would make our program a success.”

As Kate develops the Behavior Program, she will implement a training program for other caregivers, covering everything from the basics to complex behavior training methods.

“Animal behavior is what I’m most passionate about and I’m so excited to get started,” said Kate. “This the biggest way we can make an impact on the chimps’ lives.”

You can show your support for our behavior program by sending a gift from our wishlist that Kate and her team can use with the chimps!