VERO BEACH — By the end of the year, Save the Chimps is expected to complete the Great Chimpanzee Migration, the largest ever single effort on behalf of captive chimpanzees. The next trip in the Great Chimp Migration will take place in October with the final trip scheduled for November.
Save the Chimps will celebrate this important milestone and raise funds that will help offset the cost of relocating the last 19 chimps at Chimps Kitchen: A Celebrity Chef Tasting Event to benefit Save the Chimps, 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday Nov. 10 at Cobalt at the Vero Beach Hotel and Spa, 3500 Ocean Drive, Vero Beach.
Attendees will sample a selection of delicious vegetarian hors d’oeuvres created by local celebrity chefs including:
- The Cobolt – Chef Brad Willits
- The Moorings Club – Chef Michael Lander
- Riverside Café – Chef Samuel Beers
The event also features a specialty drink with a Save the Chimps flare – The Chocolate Banana Martini.
Unique silent auction items will be available for purchase, including original paintings created by chimpanzee residents. Live entertainment will include Key of Life Music and the Heritage Blue Grass Band.
Tickets are $75; $125 for two. For tickets, contact Save the Chimps at (772) 429-2225 or [email protected].
To learn more about Save the Chimps, visit www.savethechimps.org.
The Great Chimpanzee Migration has been underway since 2002 when The Coulston Foundation (TCF), a biomedical research laboratory in New Mexico that was on the verge of bankruptcy, contacted Save the Chimps founder, Dr. Carole Noon, and offered to sell the laboratory land and buildings to Save the Chimps and “donate” its 266 chimpanzees.
Thanks to a $3.7 million grant from the Arcus foundation, Save the Chimps was able to purchase and modify the stark TCF facility into a healthier and happier environment for the chimpanzees, including, for the first time in their lives, fresh food, enlarged cages, enrichment activities, compassionate caregivers and, most importantly, the establishment of social groups.
“It is heartbreaking to see the horrific conditions that these chimpanzees were subjected to, especially considering that chimpanzees are our closest relative with 98.7 percent identical genetic makeup as humans,” said Save the Chimps Communications Director Triana Romero. “I think that is why so many of us empathize with these wonderful beings.”
Since then, Save the Chimps has been permanently relocating all of the former Coulston lab chimpanzees to their “Islands in the Sun” in Florida.
Save the Chimps’ custom-built trailer has made more than 25 4,000-mile round trips between New Mexico and Florida (the equivalent to driving around the Earth four times), carrying 10 chimpanzees each time.
When they arrive at their 150-acre sanctuary in Fort Pierce, chimpanzees are free to explore the islands of grass, palm trees, hills, and climbing structures that allow the chimps to run and roam, visit with friends or find a quiet corner to relax, bask in the sun or curl up in the shade. The islands give the chimps choices and control over their own lives, choices that were lacking during their years of confinement in small cages.
“I think it’s important to give back to the chimps to make up in part for what we have done to them. It’s a way of restoring our humanity,” said Chimps Kitchen co-chair Laura Gutteridge.
