The heartwarming moment a chimpanzee survivor of a grisly laboratory experience programme was welcomed into her new home has been caught on camera. Vanilla the chimp looked happy as she looked up at the sky in her new home at a sancturary in Fort Pierce, Florida. The 29-year-old chimp was once a victim of the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in New York.
LEMSIP once houses roughly 300 chimps and a further 300 monkeys before being closed down in 1996, reports the Mirror.
Chimps like Vanilla were denied outdoor access and kept in small cages, according to advocates for the animal Project R&R.
Vanilla lived there until she was two before she was taken to the Wildlife Waystation in California, a much larger enclosure.
Her Save the Chimps profile reads: “I spent my early years in a biomedical research laboratory in New York where chimpanzees were commonly housed in 5’x5’x7’ cages suspended from the ground like bird cages. I was among thirty chimpanzees to be sent to the Wildlife Waystation in 1995 where I joined a small family group.”
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She was kept there until 2019 when the refuge went out of business and was threatened by a number of wildfires in the area.
The profile explained: “In 2019, the Wildlife Waystation closed, causing nearly 480 animals to need to be re-homed, including 42 chimpanzees.
“I was among the final seven to be re-homed, and my family and I made the cross-country trip to Florida in a FedEx airplane, thanks to the FedEx Cares program. From Orlando, Pero Family Farms generously drove us to the sanctuary in a climate-controlled semi-truck.
“It took a lot of devoted people to make our move to Florida possible and now I look forward to calling this my forever home.”
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Vanilla was greeted by a big hug from alpha male Dwight as she took in her new surroundings, a three-acre island.
Dwight and Vanilla have a “playful” relationship and she even steals food from him.
Save the Chimps’ primatologist, Dr Andrew Halloran told the New York Post that her new enclosure was a big improvement on what Vanilla had experienced before she moved to Florida.
“In California, Vanilla lived with a handful of chimps inside a chain-link fence cage with no grass and very little enrichment,” he said.
“Vanilla is settling in very well. When she’s not exploring the island with her friends, she can usually be found perched atop a three-story climbing platform surveying her new world.”
The Save the Chimps sanctuary is home to 226 chimps saved from the exotic pet reader, roadside zoos, laboratories and the entertainment industry.
Some of the chimps who come into the care of the organisation have never previously interacted with other chimps before.
Vanilla’ island is home to 18 other chimps that she “gets along with.”