Posts by Ali Crumpacker
Recent chimpanzee deaths caused by environmental pathogen
Project Chimps recently shared the sad news of two deaths of chimpanzees at its sanctuary in Morganton, Georgia. The organization fears there may be more deaths to follow as the cause is now known to be the bacteria Yersinia. Executive Director Ali Crumpacker reports: “My team has been under a tremendous amount of stress to…
Read MoreProject Chimps Charts Final Path to Bring All NIRC Chimps to Sanctuary
Project Chimps announces exciting final plans to bring every chimpanzee from the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana to its Blue Ridge, GA sanctuary.
Read MoreHealth Update: Armond (November 2021)
With a case such as Armond’s, there is little we can do to reverse those decades he spent in a confined space. Despite having access to decent size enclosures at the New Iberia lab for the years leading up to his retirement to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and despite now having access to multi-story villa and multi-acre yard.
Read MoreSafety Drills are Fun n’ Games
June is National Safety Month. At Project Chimps, we use safety drills to prepare for scenarios that we hope will never actually happen. And, while these hypothetical scenarios are serious, we do our best to make the drills fun!
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #11
Wow! That was amazing to watch them out in the yard today. This group is such a quiet, calm bunch of apes. No one was quite sure who should be in charge of the patrol this morning so there was a bit of a pile up in the tunnel at first, but then Maverick, Justin and Rocko maneuvered around everyone to take the lead and Roxy, Arielle, Tabby, and Moonie joined them. But Lindsey pushed ahead and was at the helm as this group of eight took a stroll to visit the residents in the DJ&T Villa who were watching with amusement from the safety of their outdoor porch.
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #10
The group is ready to go outside for the first time together! I wonder if Rosemary will finally be brave enough to go into the habitat with the support of the boys?
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #9
Waking the villa up after their first night fully together is another one of those moments that you aren’t ever quite sure what you are about to walk into. Will they have slept peacefully, or will they have stayed up all night getting to know one another and investigating other’s nesting habits and nighttime behaviors
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #8
The day started off with much brainstorming and reflection on how the introductions had gone so far. To recap, we have one group of mixed chimps and two groups of unmixed chimps. We could keep going by adding individuals to the mixed groups, but that could have resulted in anxiety in the separated groups as their numbers dwindled and all the higher-ranking chimps departed. Without the democracy of their leaders, the remaining chimps could have gotten out of hand – like unsupervised teenagers.
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #7
Missed the earlier entries? Start here. Eight chimps are happily living in a mixed group now– Lindsey, Roxy, Kyrstin, Tabby, Luke, Kirk, Armond, and Greg! Our next goal was to get Rocko added in. The chimps had other ideas. Rocko was not sure about coming into the mix. All five of the remaining males were…
Read MoreBoy Meets Girl – Entry #6
With our now united group of 6 chimps (Lindsey, Roxy, Kyrstin, Luke, Kirk, and Greg), it was time to bring in the enforcer, Armond. Armond is, well, the bouncer, the tough guy, the one you don’t want to mess with. It was important to get him into the mix and accepted by the small group of females before we add any more.
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