A touching video captured the moment a chimp saw the open sky for the first time in her life after arriving at a sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the United States.
Vanilla the chimpanzee had never been out of a 5-foot-square cage until it moved to Save the Chimps sanctuary. The staff there shot a video of the chimpanzee looking at the sky in awe and exploring its new home in the sunlight.
The video has been posted on the YouTube channel of the sanctuary.
Vanilla the chimp spent her life with no sunlight
According to a page on Vanilla on Save the Chimps website, it spent its early years in a biomedical research laboratory, which closed in 1997. In the lab, Vanilla lived in a cage suspended from the ground like bird cages.
Vanilla was among 30 chimpanzees to be sent to the Wildlife Waystation in 1995 where it joined a small family group.
The chimpanzee was then among a group transferred to California, where Vanilla was kept in a larger enclosure at a refuge but it went out of business in 2019.
Last year, the chimpanzee sanctuary arranged for FedEx to fly Vanilla and Its group to the new location spread across 150 acres.
The video shows Vanilla greeted with a huge hug by alpha male Dwight as it left the enclosure, gazed skyward and then explored the new island. According to the website, Vanilla will have a 3-acre space on the island.
Dr Andrew Halloran, a primatologist at Save the Chimps, told New York Post, “In California, Vanilla lived with a handful of chimps inside a chain-link fence cage with no grass and very little enrichment.”
“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,” he added.
The island refuge is home to 226 chimpanzees discarded from laboratories, the entertainment industry, the exotic pet trade and roadside zoos, according to the organization.
The chimp is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It lives in groups that range in size from 15 to 150 members, although individuals travel and forage in much smaller groups during the day.
The species lives in a strict male-dominated hierarchy, where disputes are generally settled without the need for violence.
Nearly all chimpanzee populations have been recorded using tools, modifying sticks, rocks, grass and leaves and using them for hunting and acquiring honey, termites, ants, nuts and water. The species has also been found creating sharpened sticks to spear small mammals.
