Save The Chimps Sanctuary

October 9, 2008

FORT PIERCE — Heathcote helps Save the Chimps When Dr. Jane Goodall came to the Treasure Coast to give a speech in February, she took several hours out of her busy schedule to visit 200 citrus-ringed acres in rural St. Lucie County.

As the world’s best-known researcher into the behaviors of African chimpanzees, Goodall was drawn to Save the Chimps, a private sanctuary where 141 captive apes are living out their lives unmolested, unexploited and — except for mealtimes, when caregivers on golf carts appear, laden with food — unbothered by anything having to do with humans.

“The chimpanzees are pretty much left to their own devices throughout the entire day and into the evening,” said development manager Monica Naranjo, who will be at Heathcote Botanical Gardens today sharing information and photos. “They live their lives the way they would in Africa.

“They get fed three times a day — breakfast, lunch and dinner — and they may do an occasional enrichment activity, like pine cones with peanut butter with nuts and raisins. We’ll put them out on the island for the chimps to go and forage. Or fruit frozen in blocks of ice. Some of the chimpanzees paint, so we’ll give them nontoxic paints and brushes.”

The 12 islands have been equipped with wooden jungle gyms, swings, hammocks and other equipment. It’s a pretty sweet life for these primates, all of them former research animals rescued from miserable conditions in medical laboratories, the pet and entertainment trades and — in more than a few cases — NASA’s long-ago “chimponaut” experiments.

Save the Chimps was founded by Dr. Carole Noon, a biological anthropologist appalled by the continued use of chimps in military and medical research. The Fort Pierce property — with suitably African-esque climate — was purchased through a grant from the Arcus Foundation.

Chimpanzees are social animals, and Noon had spent three years at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia, helping to establish two social groups.

The idea, Noon declared, was that the Florida chimps would have a place to “retire” with dignity, where they could live out their final years relearning what it’s like to be chimps.

In 2002, Save the Chimps — again, through Arcus — acquired Coulston Laboratories, a New Mexico facility that housed 266 chimpanzees.

Although the Fort Pierce chimps have formed strong social bonds, Noon and her 38 employees haven’t been able to bring all the animals here from New Mexico. A specially rigged trailer periodically makes the 4,000-mile trip to the former Coulson site, where conditions have been made more pleasant for the animals who can’t make the southern journey just yet.

The problem is money. “There’s no real set schedule,” Naranjo said. “It depends on when we get the money in, because its costs us a minimum of $25,000 to migrate 10 chimpanzees over.”

Save the Chimps is supported entirely by donations. “It’s up to us to raise the money to keep this facility going,” she said. “And now the times are getting lean, so it’s going to be a little more difficult. But we can do it.” Most sacred, she added, is the edict that Save the Chimps never will be open to the public. Noon — who won the prestigious Jane Goodall Award in 1984 — bristles at the mere suggestion of exploitation.

Naranjo said: “We just don’t do that at all. This is a sanctuary, which means just that.

“I wouldn’t think anyone would approach Dr. Noon with something like that, after she’s taken the chimps from those conditions.”

Courtesy of John Goodall