Project Chimps Charts Final Path to Bring All NIRC Chimps to Sanctuary

After two years of pandemic safety protocols and limited activity around transporting more chimps, 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.

This announcement comes after an anonymous founding donor has just stepped forward with an incredibly generous $3M matching pledge commitment to accelerate capital fundraising for this expansion. Project Chimps will use this match as an incentive to other donors to double the impact of their donations toward this $15 million expansion project.

At present, Project Chimps can provide housing for only a few of the chimps that remain at NIRC. This $3 million pledge, along with the Humane Society of the United States’ initial capital grant of $5 million that is already in hand, kickstarts the sanctuary’s long-planned additional 8-acre habitat and housing construction project that will complete the infrastructure needed to accommodate the over 100 laboratory chimps still waiting at NIRC to move to Georgia.

Project Chimps has been steadily working with the Atlanta-based architecture and design firm of Lord Aeck Sargent to finalize construction documents and has hired Parrish Construction to do the actual work. In 2024, Project Chimps plans to complete the first of two buildings, each of which will house up to 50 chimps, and the accompanying outdoor habitat. Additional funding of $7 million is still needed to finish the expansion and to fulfill the mission of relocating all of the New Iberia Research Center chimps to their Blue Ridge mountain home.

Recently, the Humane Society of the United States announced support of Project Chimps with a $20 million pledge. In addition to the $5 million for construction of the first building, the pledge includes $15 million over the next 10 years to support the sanctuary’s operational needs and help it become successfully independent.

Project Chimps was founded in 2014 specifically to create a home for the chimps at the New Iberia Research Center so that they could be retired from the laboratory. Over the past eight years, 85 chimpanzees have made the 14-hour journey from Louisiana to Georgia, but there are still over 100 chimpanzees waiting to come to their forever home.

To learn more about this exciting expansion project and how you can make a significant contribution to take advantage of the $3 million match, please visit projectchimps.org/roadmap