THE GREAT CHIMPANZEE MIGRATION CONTINUES

After spending decades in dungeon-like cells, the chimps are leaving their laboratory lives behind forever as they travel to Save the Chimps in Florida, the largest permanent chimpanzee sanctuary in the world.

Jaybee’s Story

Jaybee’s records indicate that he was born in 1973. He is castrated, knows how to use utensils, and has been known to put on clothes, evidence that he spent his first years in the entertainment industry or as someone’s pet.

However, all we know for certain is that from 1985 to 1996 Jaybee lived at the now-defunct Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) in New York State. While at LEMSIP, Jaybee lived alone in a small barren cage where he was anesthetized with ketamine over 150 times, had at least 19 liver biopsies and had a lymph node removed.

In 1996, when LEMSIP closed, Jaybee was sent to the Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo, NM, a biomedical laboratory with the worst record of any primate care lab in the history of the Animal Welfare Act.

Jaybee, with his blankets, waiting to move to Florida!

Upon taking over the Coulston Foundation in September 2002, Save the Chimps founder Carole Noon discovered Jaybee alone in a small cage making a ‘nest’ out of leftover monkey chow, arranging the small biscuits in a circle around himself before lying down. Dr. Noon’s heart broke and she immediately got Jaybee a bed sheet. Jaybee was thrilled; it seemed that he had ceased expecting both kindness from humans and the most basic physical comforts. Jaybee made a nest with the sheet and having no reason to expect he would ever receive another one, refused to give it up for three days (he kept the sheet clean and dry).

Imagine spending your life alone in an empty cement box…Now imagine that when it seemed all hope was gone, someone came and replaced the discomfort, the hunger, the loneliness and the fear, with comfort, safety, companionship and love. Since Save the Chimps arrived in Alamogordo, Jaybee has not spent a single night without a cozy nest of blankets, or a day without fresh fruit, access to quality on-site veterinarians and loving and respectful care. It is now common to see Jaybee atop a pile of blankets completely draped in a large colorful bed sheet.

Save the Chimps’ rescue of the Coulston Foundation chimps remains the largest and most successful rescue effort on behalf of chimpanzees in history, and arguably the single most important victory to date in efforts to protect great apes.

The rescue transitioned into The Great Chimpanzee Migration; Save the Chimps’ continuing effort to humanely relocate 286 chimpanzees from the former lab in Alamogordo, to our sanctuary in Florida.

Jaybee and his group will soon be making a cross-country journey from Alamogordo to our Florida sanctuary; the most sophisticated and chimpanzee-centric sanctuary in the world. In Florida Jaybee will be free to run in the sunshine or cozy up under a tree (with blankets close at hand of course).

Over the course of the next two years, Save the Chimps hopes to relocate the remaining 152 chimpanzees from the former Coulston facility in New Mexico to join the 134 chimps that have already moved to their islands in the Florida sun.

The chimps can only be moved with your help.

Relocating one chimpanzee from New Mexico to permanent sanctuary in Florida costs $2,500; this amount includes the expense of caregiver staff on both ends of the trip, veterinary care, transport vehicle maintenance, and fuel costs.

Please invest in a guaranteed happy ending for Jaybee and the other chimps. Save the Chimps truly cannot operate without the generosity of our compassionate supporters – Please make a donation today!

Please remember to tell your friends, family and colleagues to visit www.savethechimps.org and learn about Jaybee and the other chimps’ upcoming migration to Florida.

Help Jaybee by posting a Save the Chimps banner on your web site, MySpace or Facebook page!

Save the Chimps, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) charitable organization and all contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

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