Project Chimps is a privately funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal sanctuary for chimpanzees formerly used in research. It will eventually house 200 chimpanzees on an over 230 acre property in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Morganton, Georgia. [1]
In addition to their use as pets and entertainers, captive chimpanzees have served as subjects for scientific research. Anticipating that medical research on chimpanzees would be key to understanding diseases, such as hepatitis, the United States government and private laboratories embarked on chimpanzee breeding programs in the 1980s. [2] [3] A decade later, the experimental use of chimpanzees declined, resulting in a surplus population of captive chimpanzees. [3]
The significant cost of caring for the approximately 700 privately owned chimpanzees housed in U.S. research facilities required the development of alternatives to standard laboratory housing for chimpanzees no longer active in research. [3] Concurrent with the plight of research chimpanzees, hundreds of privately owned chimpanzees who proved unmanageable to keep as pets or performers were also in need of a professionally run facility—a sanctuary.
Project Chimps was founded in 2014 following the end of National Institutes of Health funding for biomedical research on chimpanzees. [4] The sanctuary occupies land originally occupied by a gorilla sanctuary funded by software mogul C. E. Steuart Dewar and Jane, his wife at the time. Project Chimps bought the land for about $1.6 million; the Dewar Wildlife Trust donated the facilities. [5] The sanctuary is intended to house more than 200 animals including the retired research chimpanzees at the New Iberia Research Center in New Iberia, Louisiana. [6] [7] The facility includes office buildings, a veterinary clinic, and several buildings that house 10 to 15 chimpanzees each. [8]
The mission of Project Chimps is: "to provide lifelong exemplary care to chimpanzees retired from research". [9]
To fulfill its mission of assisting these endangered nonhuman primates, Project Chimps has established several public education programs including: Discovery Days and Chimpcation, [10] The sanctuary also hosts veterinary, behavioral, animal care and organizational development interns throughout the year. [11]
Ali Crumpacker was hired as the executive director in 2017. [12]
In 2019, Project Chimps published a 5-year Strategic Plan to expand the facility and accommodate the remaining chimpanzees still living at the New Iberia Research Center. [13]
The chimpanzees receive 6-7 pounds of fresh produce every day along with daily enrichment activities and sometimes larger celebrations, such as "Chimpsgiving" feasts. [14] In 2020, Project Chimps established Project Harvest, a multi-acre farm area on the property to begin growing their own food for the chimpanzees.
In 2021, Project Chimps opened several hiking trails [15] on its property on the perimeter, outside of the chimpanzee area. Hikers can explore the trails from dawn to dusk every day of the year and may hear the chimps as they hike.
As of December 2023, Project Chimps is home to 95 chimpanzees. The chimpanzees live in dynamic social family groups ranging in size from 13 to 19 members.[ citation needed ]
The chimpanzee, or simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is thus humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 150 cm.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years' studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.
Twycross Zoo is a medium to large zoo near Norton Juxta Twycross, Leicestershire. The zoo has the largest collection of monkeys and apes in the Western World, and in 2006 re-launched itself as "Twycross Zoo – The World Primate Centre".
Oliver was a former "performing" chimpanzee once promoted as a missing link or "humanzee" due to his somewhat human-like appearance and a tendency to walk upright. Despite his somewhat unusual appearance and behavior, scientists found that Oliver was not a human-chimpanzee hybrid.
The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.
James Michael Cronin MBE was the American co-founder in 1987 of Monkey World in Dorset, England, a sanctuary for abused and neglected primates. He was widely acknowledged as an international expert in the rescue and rehabilitation of abused primates, and in the enforcement of international treaties aimed at protecting them from illegal trade and experimentation.
Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, is an island sanctuary in Uganda, dedicated to the care of orphaned eastern chimpanzees, that have been rescued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Many of the chimpanzees were rescued from poachers and are unlikely to survive reintroduction to the wild.
Primarily Primates (PPI) is a non-profit organization in Bexar County, Texas, that operates an animal sanctuary, housing 347 non-human primates and a variety of other birds and animals released from use in entertainment, research, or as rescues from the exotic pet trade. The organization was founded by Wallace (Wally) Swett in 1978, who ran the facility until 2006, when the Texas attorney general took control of it after allegations that were dismissed that the facility was an unfit place for animals. It has since been passed to new management, and operates in 2018, with a $1.1 million dollar budget. Primarily Primates employs 16 people for management and care staff, and a full-time veterinarian to assure high standards, excellent animal care and rescue, enrichment, and nutrition.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
The New York Blood Center (NYBC) is a community, nonprofit blood bank based in New York City. Established in 1964 by Dr. Aaron Kellner, NYBC supplies blood to approximately 200 hospitals in the Northeast United States. NYBC and its operating divisions also provide transfusion-related medical services to over 500 hospitals nationally.
Chimp Haven is a non-profit sanctuary for more than 300 chimpanzees retired from laboratory research. The 200-acre (81 ha) sanctuary is located in Eddie D. Jones Nature Park in Keithville, Louisiana, approximately 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Shreveport.
Save the Chimps, Inc is a publicly financed 501(c)(3) nonprofit American sanctuary specializing in the care of chimpanzees. The organization was founded by Carole C. Noon in 1997. Save the Chimps is accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries and a founding member of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance. The mission of Save the Chimps is to provide sanctuary and exemplary care to chimpanzees in need.
Carole Cooney Noon was an American anthropologist and primatologist best known for founding Save the Chimps, a Florida non-profit chimpanzee sanctuary that is the largest such sanctuary in the world as of 2009.
The Center for Great Apes is a sanctuary for great apes located east of Wauchula, Florida. Its mission is to provide a permanent sanctuary for orangutans and chimpanzees who have been rescued or retired from the entertainment industry, from research, or from the exotic pet trade; to educate the public about captive great apes and the threats to conservation of great apes in the wild; and to advocate for the end of the use of great apes as entertainers, research subjects, and pets.
Chimps Inc. is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) animal sanctuary located at P-B Ranch near Bend, Oregon, United States.
The Arcus Foundation is an international charitable foundation focused on issues related to LGBT rights, social justice, ape conservation, and environmental preservation. The foundation's stated mission is "to ensure that LGBT people and our fellow apes thrive in a world where social and environmental justice are a reality."
The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) is a national, registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization "dedicated to ending the use of animals in research, testing, and science education" and replacing them with "modern alternatives that are ethically, humanely, and scientifically superior."
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American nonprofit animal rights organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from that of property to that of persons, with a goal of securing rights to bodily liberty and bodily integrity. The organization works largely through state-by-state litigation in what it determines to be the most appropriate common law jurisdictions and bases its arguments on existing scientific evidence concerning self-awareness and autonomy in nonhuman animals. Its sustained strategic litigation campaign has been developed primarily by a team of attorneys, legal experts, and volunteer law students who have conducted extensive research into relevant legal precedents. The NhRP filed its first lawsuits in December 2013 on behalf of four chimpanzees held in captivity in New York State. In late 2014, NhRP President Steven Wise and Executive Director Natalie Prosin announced in the Global Journal of Animal Law that the Nonhuman Rights Project was expanding its work into other countries, beginning in Switzerland, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal, and Australia.
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