|
|
Current Info:
Category: Organizations
Save the Chimps was established in 1997, under the leadership of Carole Noon, Ph.D., STC's Director, in response to the U.S. Air Force's announcement that it was getting out of the chimpanzee research business. At the end of the long giveaway process, most of the chimpanzees, described by the USAF in a Wall Street Journal article as "surplus equipment," were sent to the Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo, NM, a biomedical laboratory with the worst record of any lab in the history of the Animal Welfare Act. Save the Chimps sued the Air Force on behalf of the chimpanzees given to the Coulston Foundation. After a year-long struggle, Save the Chimps gained permanent custody of 21 chimps, survivors and descendants of those captured in Africa in the 1950's and used by the Air Force in the original NASA "chimpanaut" program.
The vision of Save the Chimps was -- and remains -- to create a Sanctuary where rescued chimpanzees can live out their lives without the threat of ever returning to a laboratory. A generous donation by the Arcus Foundation enabled Save the Chimps to purchase 200 acres for a permanent sanctuary in Ft. Pierce, Florida. The Sanctuary environment was carefully designed to nurture and stimulate these sensitive and complex primates by creating a secure and enriching environment, including the construction of a three-acre island on which to safely express natural behaviors without human interference. These former lab chimpanzees now live as a social group, the largest in the U.S., in the largest enclosure in the U.S.
With the Florida Sanctuary a reality for the 21 Air Force chimps, an unexpected event rapidly expanded the scope of Save the Chimps.
|
Address:
|
P.O. Box 12220
Fort Pierce , FL 34979
USA
|
|
Contact Person:
|
Save the Chimps
|
|
Phone:
|
772-429-0403
|
|
Fax:
|
772-460-0720
|
|
E-Mail:
|
[email protected]
|
|
Website:
|
http://www.savethechimps.org/
|
|
