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Meet Dr. Dufresne, DDS – A Chimp Dentist

Where might you find a chimp dentist? One is closer than you might think! Like a lot volunteers at Project Chimps, Dr. Joe Dufresne wears many hats. On an average day, you might find him painting or helping with some other type of maintenance work, and he has even served as the driver of the transport truck that brings new chimpanzees to the sanctuary.

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The Art of Nest Building

Just like humans decorating a bedroom, chimps create their own spaces too. Each chimp has a specific preference when creating their nests. Knowing this helps us understand unique qualities among chimps and their habits.

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Health Update: Latricia (Jan 2021)

latricia chimpanzee

In early November Trish’s swell became quite enlarged and as stated, that is not unusual; a very large swell can be natural depending on where the chimp is in her cycle. But Trish stopped eating some of her food, which was our first sign that she was not ok. Upon closer inspection, her swelling was not even, and we believed she had an abscess.

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Health Update: Gertrude (Jan 2021)

gertrude chimpanzee eating mashed potato

Gertrude has a history of abscesses (four have been observed since arriving at Project Chimps in 2016) and they have always resolved on their own without further intervention. But four in four years is too frequent to be coincidence and the pattern had to be investigated.

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Health Update: Precious (Nov 2020)

two chimpanzees walking

Precious arrived in sanctuary in 2018. During her exit exam from the New Iberia Research Center, her diagnostics showed that she was in the early stages of chronic kidney decline. We vowed then to offer Precious whatever she needed to be comfortable in sanctuary as her condition progressed.

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Health Update: Jamie (Nov 2020)

chimpanzee on a porch

Jamie is spry for her age. While she is active and agile, the team noticed that something was just a little off – she was drinking a lot of water. While subtle as that symptom might be, it indicated there could be something going on that needed to be investigated.

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How old is old?

Search the internet for “chimpanzee life expectancy” and you may read that chimpanzees live 50-60 years in captivity and a little less in the wild, or something to this effect. Now search human life expectancy and you may get lost in the search results as it varies vastly among countries and cultures, but you may find that some humans can expect to live to 100-115 years now!

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Nails Do Grow Back

A chimp that is playing and having a good time builds excitement levels that reach a certain threshold where it sometimes becomes aggressive behavior. Play then turns into chimps smacking each other. They are so strong that when their hands come down for a smack, they may nick each other. Sometimes a bigger wound can occur – like a fingernail might get pulled off.

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Coronavirus Response Update

Oscar chimp laying sideways on a hammock outdoors

As the threat of the Coronavirus continues, Project Chimps’ executive director, Ali Crumpacker, outlines more of the measures we are taking to ensure the short-term and long-term health of the chimps and our Project Chimps family.

Here are some of the things we are doing now, with the caveat that the situation is extremely fluid and that some of these actions may be revised in the days and weeks to come, in keeping with government and industry recommendations.

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