Tragic lab-testing history of sky-loving Vanilla the chimp

For the first time in her 29 years, a chimp named Vanilla finally saw the sky.

A viral video, posted to YouTube by the animal sanctuary Save the Chimps, shows the primate looking absolutely astonished.

“She is clearly elated to have suddenly found freedom,” Dan Mathews, the sanctuary’s director of events and special projects, told The Post.

The heartwarming video was shared at Friday’s American Society of Primatologists symposium in Reno by Save the Chimps’ primatologist Dr. Andrew Halloran.

Vanilla, a 29-year-old survivor of the notorious Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), located in Tuxedo, NY, saw the open sky after one year of arriving at Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Mathews said Vanilla wasn’t even sure about stepping outside at first.

“Dwight, the alpha male who’s in charge of the chimps, coaxed her out with open arms,” Mathews explained. “In the video, you see her going into his arms for a hug. It is the first time she was outdoors with more than 10 feet of fence around her on all sides from top to bottom.”

In the video, Vanilla looks up in wonderment, just as a human might upon making a marvelous discovery.

“Chimps have 98.8% of DNA similarity with humans,” said Mathews. “Now that Vanilla is out, she hardly goes back to the care-house. Yesterday, she was sunbathing on one of the outdoor platforms.”

After decades locked away, Vanilla is living the good life at what Mathews calls “Florida’s wildest retirement community.” 

She was born into captivity at LEMSIP in 1995 — and immediately separated from her mother. 

“It was a horrible lab and protested by animal rights activists for decades. Jane Goodall targeted the place as a hellhole,” Mathews said. “The chimps there watched TV and never saw the light of day. The separation was because mothers are so protective of their offspring that it would have been difficult to experiment on [the babies].”

Through the late 1990s, the lab specialized in research for HIV and hepatitis. “Vanilla was one of the last who could have been tested,” said Mathews. “Researchers drew blood and did biopsies. They infected the chimpanzees with various diseases, but I don’t know if Vanilla was infected.”

Animals at the lab lived in elevated wire-mesh cages and kept in a manner that amounted to cruelty.

“They used mesh so they could clean cages by hosing them down,” said Mathews. “Then the waste would go out through the mesh, collect on the ground and be hosed down from the ground. That way the chimps never had to be let out of their cages for cleaning purposes. It was convenient for the facility but cruel for the chimps. These creatures, with a strong sense of smell, were forced to eat and sleep above feces.”

In fact, it was the cages that led to LEMSIP being shut down.

“The USDA wanted the cages upgraded but LEMSIP didn’t want to spend the money to do so,” said Mathews. “As a result, the lab was shut down and more than 100 chimps had to be relocated.”

Vanilla and her sister Shake were sent to the Wildlife Waystation, a nonprofit refuge north of Los Angeles.

“The people running it were well meaning, but the place became a dumping ground for many animals who were being discarded,” said Mathews. “Vanilla was with five other chimps in an outdoor enclosure that was about the size of a garage. It was made from chain-link fencing on all sides and up top, with a dirt and concrete floor.”

The facility was at least an upgrade from LEMSIP: “No experiments were being done and none of the chimps were getting poked with needles,” said Mathews.

But it was still far from ideal.

“[The animals] were never allowed out of their cages … and [there was] a lot of human gawkers in the form of volunteers and visitors, which stresses out the chimps,” Mathews claimed. “It was better than a lab but not what nature intended for chimpanzees.”

The facility, which reportedly also housed displaced bears, lions and wolves, was situated in an area of Southern California prone to wildfires. At times, smoke became serious enough that the animals had to be evacuated.

In 2017, part of the facility was burned down by wildfires; two years later, Wildlife Way Station went out of business. (Founder Martine Colette passed away last year.)

California Fish and Wildlife Department over the animals and worked with the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance to finally find Vanilla and Shake a happy home. 

She and six other chimps, including Shake, were relocated to Save the Chimps, which has boosters including Alan Cumming, Pink and Paul McCartney — who loaned the song “When I’m Sixty-Four” for a promotional video.

The nonprofit, privately funded facility is located on what had once been a contaminated orange grove in Fort Pierce, north of West Palm Beach. It contains 12 man-made islands, all surrounded by water and each measuring three to five acres. 

Mathews explains that the water was put in with a purpose: “It creates a natural barrier for the chimps. They are afraid of water [and] will not go in. So they stay on their islands without needing to be caged.”

Vanilla arrived at the chimp-tastic sanctuary in July 2022.

“She spent a few months in quarantine, with other new arrivals,” said Mathews. “Then it became clear that she fit in with a group of other chimps. At that point, we introduced her and the group to different islands to see where they would fit in.

“An island called Air Force, where offspring of NASA and Air Force chimps live, seemed to be a good fit [for Vanilla]. That was in April. At first, Vanilla hung out in the care-house, until the caregivers decided that she was ready to go outside.”

It’s a long way from watching TV in a smelly cage.

The outdoors-loving Vanilla now forages for strategically placed food, swings around on lengths of rope and, if inspiration strikes, has opportunities to paint.

“Vanilla has a long future; she can live here for another 30 or 40 years,” said Mathews. “She seems elated to have her own world, to finally have the closest thing to a natural habitat. She is embracing it.”