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Enrichment Means Fun for Former Research Chimps

Chimpanzee Noel with an icee block

Would you eat an Icee in the dead of winter? Chimpanzees will and they seem to love it!

Noel and the other former research chimpanzees at Project Chimps didn’t hesitate when caregivers served them giant frozen blocks of juice and other enrichment items as part of a special February celebration for the chimps.

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One Chimp’s Journey to Sanctuary – part two

Kareem’s story starts with the heart-wrenching fact that, like many chimpanzees who were born in research facilities, he was pulled from his mother at just a few days old. It’s difficult to think about the devastation that Kareem’s mother must have endured when her baby was pulled from her loving arms. Caregivers swaddled him in diapers and placed him in the lab’s chimpanzee nursery.

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One Chimp’s Journey to Sanctuary – part one

Kareem was only 5 years old and living at the now-closed Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in New York City. It was 1994 and a compassionate caregiver named Nancy was trying to lure Kareem back into his small cage after a day of innocent play in the lab’s nursery playroom. Kareem was tired of going back into a tiny cage each time his play sessions were over, so he held back.

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From a Cage in New York to a Forest in Georgia, Former Research Chimp Alex Arrives in Permanent Sanctuary

Alex spent his adolescent years confined in a small, metal cage with no room to roam. Now, after 34 years in multiple medical research laboratories, the former research chimpanzee will have six acres of forest to explore as the newest resident of the Project Chimps sanctuary.  Thanks to a cooperative agreement with the University of Louisiana’s New Iberia Research Center (NIRC), Alex and…

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Getting Ready for Group 7!

Chimpanzee caregivers Joseph and Brooke are getting the transport trailer ready for…Group Seven! The Project Chimps transport trailer can accommodate up to ten former research chimpanzees in individual carriers for the one-time journey from the lab in Louisiana to their forever sanctuary home here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In a few days, we’re going…

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