Heart-warming moment Vanilla the chimp explodes with joy when she sees the sky for the first time

This is the heart-warming moment 29-year-old chimpanzee Vanilla explodes with joy and amazement as she sees the sky for the first time after being caged her entire life.

On her move-in day adorable footage captures Vanilla as she is encouraged by alpha male Dwight to step outside into the open and is captured gawping at sky in awe. This was the emotional first time the 29-year-old chimpanzee had been outside of a 5ft cage or enclosure. 

After living in an experimental New York lab until she was two, Vanilla stayed in an enclosure where she was unable to see the sky clearly through the fenced roof in a Californian rescue facility until she was moved to the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida. 

Vanilla was greeted with a hug from Dwight as soon as she stepped into the sanctuary, welcoming her to her new home, where she will live with 18 other primates. She looked overjoyed as she was welcomed with open arms.

And as more of her new primate housemates come over to greet her she kept looking to the sky in disbelief.

The chimpanzee was greeted with a hug from the alpha male Dwight as soon as she stepped into the sanctuary, welcoming her to her new home, where she will live with 225 other primates, 18 of which live on her island. Vanilla was visibly delighted by the new environment

The video also shows her joyfully running around the 3-acre island and sitting with her new family, who were grooming each other. 

The video was taken by Save the Chimps’ primatologist Dr Andrew Halloran, who told the 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.’

Halloran said that when Vanilla, who is described by the Save the Chimps as independent, curious and intelligent, is not exploring her new island with the other chimpanzees, she sits on top of a three-storey climbing platform overlooking her new world.

Vanilla lives on one of 12 islands, which are separated from each other by small waterbeds, allowing the sanctuary to give the chimps their own open-sky playground.  

She gets on well with the 18 chimps on her island, Halloran added, and said Vanilla enjoyed a special relationship with alpha male Dwight, who she sometimes steals food from.

The island communities measure 150-acres in total and every chimp is matched to their island by a primatologist based on their personality and behaviour. 

More of her new housemates were coming over the greet her as she kept looking into the camera and to the sky in disbelief

The adorable footage also showed her joyfully running around the 3-acre island

At the end of the video, she could be seen with her new family, who were grooming each other

When Vanilla (pictured), who is described by the Save the Chimps as independent, curious and intelligent, is not exploring her new island with the other chimpanzees, she sits on top of a three-storey climbing platform overlooking her new world

Vanilla first lived in New York’s now-closed Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), where she was housed in five-square-foot cages hanging from the ceiling – similar to bird cages – until 1995

Vanilla first lived in New York’s now-closed Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), where she was housed in five-square-foot cages hanging from the ceiling – similar to bird cages – until 1995.

Aged two, she was among 30 chimpanzees sent to the Wildlife Waystation in California, and joined a small family group who stayed in a larger enclosure.

But when the refuge closed in 2019, she was yet again without a home, like 480 other animals – including 42 chimps – who lived there.

Rescuers scrambled to re-home all the primates, with Vanilla being among the final seven to be moved.

The chimpanzee and her family made the cross-country trip to Florida, where they had to quarantine before slowly being introduced into the larger family groups.

Now, Vanilla and her family finally have a 3-acre island to explore and roam around as they please as part of the Save the Chimps sanctuary. 

The 226 chimpanzees at the sanctuary came from laboratories, the entertainment industry, exotic pet trades or roadside zoos and most of them had never interacted with other chimps before and had to endure solitary confinement. 

What was the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates and why did it close? 

At one point, the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) housed some 300 chimpanzees and nearly 300 monkeys. Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates were subjected to intensive biomedical research in areas including reproduction, blood transfusions, hepatitis B and HIV.

LEMSIP was established in 1965 with the goal of becoming a federally funded primate research center for the New York area, but it remained a private laboratory until it closed in 1997. 

These facilities included the Fauna Foundation, Wildlife Waystation – where Vanilla was moved to – and the Primate Rescue Center

The lab, located in a wooded area north of New York City, was affiliated with New York University’s (NYU) School of Medicine.

In 1995, NYU reacted to LEMSIP by suddenly announcing that it would close LEMSIP and give all its primates to the Coulston Foundation.

At the time, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had filed formal charges against Coulston for the negligent deaths of chimpanzees and monkeys. 

In 1997, the LEMSIP chimpanzees were sent to Coulston, but not before Jim Mahoney, LEMSIP’s veterinarian and acting director after the previous director Jan Moor-Jankowski was fired, managed to place 109 chimpanzees and 100 monkeys in sanctuaries around North America.

These included the Fauna Foundation, Wildlife Waystation – where Vanilla was moved to – and the Primate Rescue Center. 

Source: Releasechimps.org