The chimpanzee named Vanilla has never been out of a 5-foot-square cage.
A touching video has captured the moment a chimpanzee saw the open sky after arriving at a sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the United States. Vanilla the chimpanzee was never out of a 5-foot-square cage until she was moved to Save the Chimps sanctuary in 2022. The staff there shot a video of the chimpanzee looking at the sky in awe and the exploring her new home in the sunlight. The video has been posted on the YouTube channel of the sanctuary.
According to a page on Vanilla on Save the Chimps website, she spent its early years in a biomedical research laboratory, which closed in 1997. In the lab, Vanilla lived in a cage suspended from the ground like bird cages.
Vanilla was among 30 chimpanzees to be sent to the Wildlife Waystation in 1995 where she joined a small family group.
She was then transferred to California along with a group of chimpanzees, where Vanilla was kept in a larger enclosure at a refuge but it went out of business in 2019.
Last year, the chimpanzee sanctuary arranged for FedEx to fly Vanilla and her group to the new location spread across 150 acres.
The video shows Vanilla being greeted with a huge hug by alpha male Dwight as she leaves the enclosure, gazes skyward and then explores the new island. According to the website, Vanilla will have a 3-acre space on the island.
Dr Andrew Halloran, a primatologist at Save the Chimps, told 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."
"Vanilla is settling in very well. When she's not exploring the island with her friends, she can usually be found perched atop a three-story climbing platform surveying her new world," he added.
The island refuge is home to 226 chimpanzees discarded from laboratories, the entertainment industry, the exotic pet trade and roadside zoos, according to the organization.