New Mexico Sanctuary Cares For Chimpanzees Rescued From Research Laboratories

The D-N-A for humans and chimpanzees is about 98 percent identical.
But even though chimps are our closest relatives, they are not human. In Alamorgordo, New Mexico a group called Save the Chimps is helping chimps learn how to be chimps.

Jen Feuerstein is the director of the Save the Chimps facility in Alamogordo. It used to be a medical research lab where the chimps were used as lab rats.

But in 2002, the lab went out of business and Save the Chimps took over. The chimps have a better life than ever and the goal is to send them to an island sanctuary in Florida.

Feuerstein says she loves working with chimpanzees but says they do not make good pets because they are very powerful and very emotional. She says emotionally they can turn on a dime. They can be gentle and mellow one moment and very rambunctious and combative the next.

There are 133 chimpanzees in the Alamogordo facility. Feuerstein expects all of them to be sent to the Florida sanctuary during the next couple of years.

For more information you can go the the save the chimps website: www.savethechimps.org [1]