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During the month of March, Lou, who was featured in the NATURE SERIES Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History, and 16 of his friends hit the road and left the lab behind forever.
When the trailer arrived in Florida, the chimps were unloaded and let into their new chimp house. Once all of the chimps arrived, they were re-united with each other and were then introduced to 7 other chimps that now make up their family of 24.
When the family was complete, the doors were opened and the chimps were released onto their three-acre island in the sun.
Because these chimps are used to walls and ceilings always surrounding them, we tried an experiment on Rufus's island. We built a half tunnel - there is chain link fencing on one side of the tunnel and a roof of shade cloth. The second side of the tunnel is open. The experiment was a success on Rufus's island and
Lou's group used it to explore there island.
Most of the older, wild born chimps knew exactly what to do. Immediately, they began to explore their island. Most of the younger chimps were a bit more wary.
Screams of excitement could be heard across the sanctuary. Some of the chimps in Rufus's group stood at the edge of their island to watch what was going on.
Lou was captured by the Air Force in Africa when he was just a baby. By his third birthday, Lou was the subject of liver and bone marrow biopsies. He spent the next four decades in the lab in various experiments. Lou, now over 40 years old, is out of his cage at last.
Like the other groups, we expect that over time the whole group will be rushing out the doors to search their island for goodies hidden in the grass.
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