HOPE ROARS AGAIN

What happened after the gates of West Coast Game Park Safari closed?

Not long ago, George the chimpanzee lived alone on public display at West Coast Game Park Safari in Bandon, Oregon.

Today, his life looks very different.

More than a year after authorities raided and shut down the game park, KATU has revisited some of the animals removed from the facility—and documented what their lives look like now in sanctuary care.

George now lives at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Washington.

And one small detail from his caregivers says something remarkable about the individual emerging in his new environment.

He loves to climb high—and jump.

According to sanctuary co-director Diana Goodrich, George's enthusiasm for jumping from high places can even make his caregivers nervous.

It's a seemingly simple observation.

But it raises a much larger question:

What becomes possible when an animal is given more than somewhere to exist?

For animals who cannot be returned to the wild, quality of life involves more than food, shelter and veterinary care.

It can also mean opportunities to explore, make choices, develop appropriate social relationships and express behaviors important to them as individuals.

George's story is especially poignant because we cannot know what his life might have been under different circumstances.

Nor should his behavior today be interpreted as proof that every consequence of his previous life has somehow disappeared.

But we can recognize how profoundly his circumstances have changed.

And George isn't the only animal beginning another chapter.

KATU's report follows other animals removed from West Coast Game Park Safari and provides a rare opportunity to see what happens after the rescue vehicles leave and the headlines fade.

That matters.

Wildlife advocacy necessarily spends considerable time documenting suffering, regulatory failures and circumstances in which animals have been failed.

But accountability shouldn't end there.

We should also recognize what becomes possible when animals receive another chance.

Sanctuary cannot return George to the wild or give him back the years already lived.

But the rest of his life still matters.

Sometimes accountability means documenting what went wrong.

Sometimes it means showing what becomes possible when we finally do better.

And sometimes—

that is where hope begins.

Source: KATU
“Hope Roars Again: Neglected animals from shuttered game park thrive in sanctuaries”
Published August 5, 2026

Read the complete KATU report:
https://katu.com/news/local/hope-roars-again-neglected-animals-from-shuttered-game-park-thrive-in-sanctuaries-oregon-abuse-chimp-tigers-lion-george-bandon-west-coast?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Keeping Wildlife Wild
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