![]() That's why the process of sending chimps to the sanctuary is "largely finished," but "there's still that group that's in a tight social bond that will be reconsidered when we can," says James Anderson, the NIH's deputy director for program coordination, planning and strategic initiatives. When the sicker chimps die, however, their companions will be reassessed and may make the move. Nine of these remaining chimps are probably healthy enough to relocate to Chimp Haven, but they're currently ineligible to go because each is part of a socially bonded pair with another, sicker chimp. ![]() The vast majority of the 85 or so government-supported chimps remaining at research facilities have chronic, progressive health problems such as heart disease or diabetes that make the animals too fragile and ill to ever move, say officials at the National Institutes of Health. Now all of the federally managed chimps that have been deemed eligible to go to this sanctuary have actually been sent there. Huey and Pancake's arrival at Chimp Haven means the government has entered a new phase in its ongoing effort to retire its former research chimps. It's kind of full circle, for me, to have Huey and Pancake to be the chimps that are coming now." But that makes sense after 20 years of them being together. "Huey is way more devoted to Pancake than I recall, very attached to her. Both Pancake and I have put on a little bit of weight," Fultz says with a laugh. "I think we've all aged, obviously, in different ways. The two chimps are now hanging out in a building that serves as the welcome center for Chimp Haven, the largest chimpanzee sanctuary in the world and the official retirement home for research chimps owned or supported by the federal government.Ī co-founder of Chimp Haven, Amy Fultz, actually knew Huey and Pancake back in the 1990s, when she was working at that Texas research facility and dreaming of someday creating a sanctuary for retired research chimps. They traveled for hours to a place in Louisiana where the hoots of hundreds of chimpanzees echo over pine trees. Together, they got loaded onto a truck at a research facility in Texas, where they've lived since they were young. Huey, a male, and Pancake, a female, have been devoted to each other for over two decades. For two chimpanzees named Huey and Pancake, both in their mid-30s, this week has been unexpectedly dramatic.
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