This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
This is Chimp Haven,
the American National Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Louisiana.
Now who's this? That's Agnes.
Agnes. Well, hello.
Meet extrovert Whitney,
24-year-old shy and retiring Jill,
and playful teenager Tessa.
These girls are no ordinary chimpanzees.
They've spent their entire lives in laboratories
being used for medical research.
It's a hell of an autobiography, isn't it?
Data and... Absolutely. ..procedures.
In 2015, the US government ended all testing on chimpanzees.
Now, 550 chimps are leaving the labs forever
and moving to new homes where
they'll have experiences they've never had before.
Tree climbing!
SUE GASPS
That makes me so incredibly happy.
It's time for us to give them a great retirement.
I'm going to have to, I'm afraid, look at some of those costumes.
There are some good ones. We have a big giant banana.
Of course you do.
To follow their rehabilitation...
..as they adjust to their new forever home.
That was to the face. I won't lie.
I do know how you feel when you look at an animal
and they look right back at you.
That I do know, and how brilliant that is.
I'm here to meet Whitney and her gang of girls...
Jill, Martha, Paula!
..as they prepare to meet a group of boys
for the very first time...
..and hopefully form a family troop.
It's like they've been waiting for each other all their lives,
you know, it's like it's completed the group.
I want to find out if there really can be life after the lab.
They had a little kiss. I can't bear it.
So, it was just 18 months ago that the federal government
here in the States finally decided to retire all the chimps
being used for experimentation in medical facilities.
And they're going to come here to a retirement sanctuary
known as Chimp Haven.
And of course I'm excited to get to see the chimps up close.
It's something I've always wanted to see,
but there's a degree of fear within me because in doing so I'm going to
have to actually confront their back stories.
I'm going to have to find out what we did to them,
what sacrifices they made for us,
and ultimately, on balance,
whether or not it was worth it.
Is it possible for a 47-year-old woman to be too excited?
I think it is.
I'm feeling it.
PHONE RINGS
Chimp Haven, may I help you? Hey, this is the BBC team.
OK.
Already I feel like I'm going to have to emotionally pace myself
cos I nearly burst into tears just at the signage.
"Chimp Haven - a new beginning."
Let's not throw all the tears into the mix before we start.
Oh, man, I can see chimps.
Hello! Hello.
You must be Sue. You must be Amy.
Yes, I am. It's good to see you. I'm more of a hugger.
I'm meeting Amy Fultz.
co-founder of Chimp Haven and head of behaviour.
Already I'm very drawn...
Yeah? I've seen my first chimp.
Is that a good kicking off or a bad kicking off?
Yes. It's a good kicking off. OK, good. Always good.
For almost a century,
humans have subjected our closest animal relatives to medical testing,
in search of cures for diseases like polio, HIV and hepatitis.
Amy, is it wrong that I feel very at home in this outfit?
You look great. I'm feeling it.
I'm running a sort of Holby City vibe. This is good.
So, take me to the operating theatre, I'm ready to go. All right.
In the '90s, as the UK banned testing on chimpanzees,
US research reached a peak,
with 1,500 chimps living in labs across the States.
Chimps have been retired to Chimp Haven for the last 12 years,
but since testing ended, new arrivals are increasing rapidly.
It's now home to 214 chimpanzees.
They're saying hello. Hello.
That's Agnes.
Agnes. Well, hello. What gives?
Good girl, Agnes.
I think that's why I'm so drawn to chimps.
It's like you mirror them, they mirror you, yeah.
Like you would with a child, you know?
I have always been against animal testing
and have deliberately avoided talking to anyone
involved in that world.
However, Amy first started working with chimpanzees
in a laboratory in the early '90s.
I was actually a behavioural person.
I was a research assistant doing behavioural work.
Part of my job was helping the chimpanzees to psychologically
be happy as well as, you know, the veterinarians taking care of the physical care.
You see, damn you, Amy.
You're the first person I've actually met
who's worked with laboratory champs, and in my head you're demonic.
AMY LAUGHS You can't be a decent person
who wants to... Who wants to provide aftercare for these animals.
You're the bad guy. How dare you be so nice and considered?
So, we're going to go meet our six newest girls, Whitney's group.
Whitney's group? Whitney's group, yes.
They're getting ready to meet some boys for the first time.
And when the last time the boys saw girls? I don't know.
OK. That, that's going to be
a heady surge of testosterone coming at you, then.
Whitney and her girls arrived from a laboratory in New Mexico,
where they lived together for ten years.
Usually when the chimps are introduced to one another
they have to establish who's going to be the boss.
And that may end up being one of the girls in this group.
We have some very strong female personalities...
Do they? ..in this group.
And we also have a strong male personality in Pierre,
so there might be a little bit of...
Pierre? Pierre is one of the boys.
Oh. Do you know what? I am gagging on meeting Pierre.
Pierre has already piqued my interest.
Are you ready? I'm absolutely ready. Great.
New arrivals spend three weeks in quarantine,
where their health is assessed.
The next stage for the girls is to be gradually introduced to the boys.
OK, Lindsay. I want to introduce you to Sue.
Hey, Lindsay, I'm Sue. Good to see you.
Sue. Can I see them?
Sure. Or can we go straight in? What's the procedure?
Well, we need to get on what we call PPE,
which is personal protective equipment.
One thing that probably Lindsay and I both agree on
when you're meeting these guys,
it's good to sort of make yourself a little bit smaller.
You can nod to the chimps.
So I'm just doing a sort of, crab like...?
THEY LAUGH
Once they kind of get used to you, but you're just making yourself
kind of small. Sure.
You can also reach your hand out.
So, firm like that, or more like that?
Kind of like that. Like you're being submissive.
I'm just in the shadow of quite a large biohazard sign.
That always very reassuring.
These chimps have been used in hepatitis and HIV studies
in the past.
So, another reason for all of the... Sure.
Let's do it. All right. Ready?
Oh, man, I'm so excited.
Pierre and his boys have been waiting six years
for the right group of chimps to be introduced to.
I think the girls are on the right, the boys are on the left.
They've been placed in holding pens opposite one another
to get acquainted from a safe distance.
CHIMPS RATTLE CAGES
Already you can see the difference between the girls and the boys.
The girls have taken on their role of, lay low.
I just got a good bit of spit on me, that's good.
AMY LAUGHS
The spitter was who? Well, Pierre is usually the spitter.
He's going to tell you that he's the boss.
Yeah, I believe him. I believe him.
He probably will do that a lot of times whenever you're in here.
But for all those people who look at chimpanzees and say, "I want to hug one,"
just the power, the raw power. Exactly.
You realise how strong they are. You've entered their area.
For sure, this is their bedroom. Their bedrooms.
Exactly. In terms of looking directly at a chimp,
particularly the male chimps, is that advisable?
I wouldn't look directly in their eyes,
it's a form of, you're challenging them.
Sure. So, you kind of just want to look around them,
but you can look at the girls, you know,
it's more for the alpha males and things like that.
Yeah.
Did you...? So that's sort of like a greeting, is it? Exactly.
That's way better than spitting.
Yeah, can I just say, lads, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Yeah, he's got a mouthful of water. Oh, yeah. You're in trouble.
CAGES RATTLE
Oh!
And I was even shielding you.
THEY LAUGH
That is Pierre. Oh, that was Pierre, yeah.
That is Pierre. And it's kind of warm, too.
I think he held it in his mouth for a little while. Oh, that's good, yeah.
Chimps usually don't spit in the wild.
That's something that is kind of, they do in captivity.
It just, it's to get your attention.
They probably want to say hi in their own way.
I mean, there are different ways.
Look, I mean this technique is much more effective at me saying hello.
Yeah, it's way better. Just nodding.
Jill, she's the sweet one.
She lays back really quiet.
She watches out for her group.
She alarm barked whenever the boys were about to spit on you,
so she has your back, too.
Jill. Jill, you are fast becoming my favourite.
You sort of come in first of all with Whitney, whose giving it some,
but it's... You stay for Jill.
I'm no behaviourist, but I'm thinking that Jill's pretty relaxed now.
We've got Jill to a very chilled-out space.
She's relaxed, yeah. That I'm happy with.
Yeah, exactly. Jill, you've taken my heart.
I can't leave Jill now. I'm overinvested.
CAGE RATTLES
Whoa.
And Pierre once again.
That was to the face. I won't lie.
That was... He gets his point across that he would like your attention.
Well, yeah. He's like, "Stop turning your back on me."
I'm all yours, pal.
What's next?
Very submissive. Please don't spit on me again.
You go into an environment like that and you've got no idea what
you're going to get, and it was so intense. It was frightening.
Properly frightening.
When those male chimpanzees start throwing things
and start smashing at the bars,
the primal part of your brain just wants to run.
Run, run, run, because they are dangerous animals.
But then just when you're dealing with all that,
I had this extraordinary connection with Jill,
and it's just lovely.
I don't understand anything about genetics,
but I do know how you feel when you look at an animal
or a fellow human and they look right back at you.
That I do know. And how brilliant that is.
If all goes to plan,
the hope is that Jill and Pierre's groups will live together in a
mixed-sex troupe just as they would in the wild.
Eventually, they'll move into one of the three forest enclosures
at the heart of the sanctuary.
Where is this? So, we're at one of our forested habitats.
It's approximately four acres.
Part of Chimp Haven's ethos
is that we allow the chimpanzees to be chimpanzees.
All the chimpanzees at the sanctuary
are still reliant on humans for food.
Hey, Mark, we are ready for the Robinson release, please.
They've been waiting in their bedrooms while staff
distribute their dinner.
Oh, there they are, there they are, there they are!
Great.
When we started Chimp Haven we didn't really know
how these habitats would work,
cos the chimps really hadn't had access to a forest.
And we were pleasantly surprised.
The second day that they were in the habitat, this group...
It's a very different make-up now, over the years,
but they were climbing trees, and within a month we had found
the first nest. So, the habitats work.
Oh. Tree, tree climbing, tree climbing!
That's a lovely sight.
Look how high she's climbing.
SUE GASPS
Look at that. That makes me so incredibly happy.
It is magical to watch these captive-born chimps climbing trees,
Something they would've never before coming here.
Isn't that beautiful? Yes, it is.
And wouldn't it be great if one day Jill and her group
could pick up these skills, too?
Why isn't it possible to take these animals back
to environments in Africa?
Well, first of all, chimpanzees are an endangered species...
Yeah. ..and part of the reason that they are endangered is because we're
losing habitat. They're also a territorial species,
so they might not be welcomed into a chimpanzee group.
You can't just plunk them back into... Right.
But I think more importantly,
most of the chimpanzees here have been raised in captivity,
with people providing their food.
So, trying to kind of take them from this captive environment
into the wild might be a really big challenge.
To prevent the mixed-sex groups breeding,
all male chimps are given vasectomies,
but staff discovered it doesn't always work.
We do have what we call some oops babies in this group.
Three half-sisters, Tracy, Natalie
and Valentina Rose.
And their father was Conan.
And then our youngest is approximately six-month-old,
named Carly.
There's the baby. Where, where? Little hands under the belly.
Walking. No way!
Part of the reason that we don't want them to reproduce
is because they live a long time.
They can live up to 60 years.
And every birth of a baby could potentially take the place
of a chimpanzee being retired from research.
I would just be going, "Yeah, billions of babies,
"beautiful chimp babies!
"Let's restock the world!"
Jill and the girls are due to be introduced to Pierre
and his boys and ten days' time.
Amy, I just wanted to, like,
find out a little bit more about introductions.
It might seem as simple as chimp A meet chimp B,
but of course there's a whole network of complexity that surrounds that.
Yeah, the planning actually starts very early.
We have to get to know the chimpanzees and determine
what family is going to be best, sort of, for them.
What was it about Whitney's group that made that the perfect fit?
I think particularly that they are so cohesive with one another.
They are such a group of very strong-willed girls.
With Pierre's group, Pierre's very dominant.
Very dominant!
You know, Jill is a little more timid. I know.
And so say Pierre decides that he wants to bully her a bit.
My guess is that then Whitney and Paula...
Martha... ..and Martha, yes, are all going to come to her aid.
When you introduce the group,
what sort of behaviours will you be looking for?
Chimps, just like people, touch is very important.
Something that happens that's, you know, maybe harder for people
is that chimpanzees sometimes fight.
That's sort of a worst-case scenario situation.
Chimpanzees can be killed.
I don't think I'd adequately taken onboard
how much process there is in taking
a chimp that is only used to a sterile laboratory environment
and then gently weaning it off its relationship to man
so that it can live in social groups in the forest.
Those girls, Whitney and her crew, and lovely, gorgeous, lovely Jill,
are embarking on a new phase of their lives.
It's a humbling thing to see them at the start of retirement,
learning all these new things.
And move from these almost, like,
holding pens where they are now, awaiting introductions,
into one of those extraordinary forested habitats
where they can live the rest of their lives peacefully
in the way they should.
With Jill and Pierre's groups set to be introduced
in eight days' time,
I want to learn more about the unique relationship
the staff have with their chimps.
The sanctuary has a dedicated enrichment team
who provided toys to engage and entertain the chimps.
They also give them special feeding devices
which replicate foraging in the wild.
Hello. Are you Leilani?
I'm Leilani. I see. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you. How's it going?
Good, good. Good. How are you?
I'm really good. So, this is your special closet?
Yes, this is the closet of fun.
What the hell's it for?
Well, it has all of the puzzle-related feeding devices,
but also some of the non-food related stuff,
so the skirts and the puppets and things they like to look at.
We have bubbles for bubble machines.
Of all the things I expected to be involved in chimp fun...
Yeah. This is like a sort of, a sort of waist adornment and you just...
What would you do with that for chimps?
Well, you dance. Like, to a drum.
Does that happen a lot in the wild? LEILANI LAUGHS
You just find that sort of rogue women walk up,
come out of the forest with sort of heavily jewelled pants on
and just give it some? No. No.
The reason we do unusual things like that is because in the wild
you would encounter several different scenarios
as you trek through.
In the wild, chimps are stimulated by the search for food
each and every day. Here, the team have to find more creative ways
to engage their curiosity.
What on earth have you got above the foragers?
Those are DVDs.
And we have some other DVDs over here,
which is the Planet Earth and then the Bollywood,
which is Pierre's favourite movie.
It's Bride And Prejudice. So, let me just... That was quite a lot to take on board.
Pierre's favourite is the Bollywood classic, Bride And Prejudice?
Yes. What does he do when he... When he sees Bride And Prejudice?
Well, any Bollywood,
but Bride And Prejudice in particular, he likes to just watch.
I think that it has something to do with the fun dancing
and the singing.
Garfield. Who likes Garfield?
Oof. Um... I mean, obviously... The babies do.
Obviously everyone loves Miss Congeniality 2.
LAUGHTER That one's actually less popular.
Yes, well, that's a hell of a selection.
So, are you working on new outfits? LAUGHTER
You've got a whole raft... We actually have, like, we have costumes. Oh, I knew you would.
And masks. I'm going to have to, I'm afraid, look at some of those costumes.
I know it's a climb, but I... Oh, there's...there's some good ones.
We have a big giant banana. Of course you do. And... Up we go.
Let's go. This is good. That's the banana.
This is great. This is great.
I don't even know what that is. Oh, I think we have a gorilla outfit
somewhere. Yeah, that one.
Yeah, no, I feel... I personally feel enriched.
I don't know how a chimp would feel, but I feel thoroughly enriched.
LAUGHTER
SHE PLAYS "TIWNKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR"
Bearing in mind, when I arrived, the folks at Chimp Haven said that
their mission was to get chimps turned as much as they possibly
could into their wild state,
it seems deeply ironic that I've spent most of the day dressed as a
banana, playing the steel drum.
No clapping! Jill's looking as if she feels suicidal. LAUGHTER
But, to be fair to them,
what they're trying to do at least is replicate the stimulus,
the constant stimuli that these chimps would have,
and, you know, by any means necessary.
So, good for them. It entertains them, it entertains the chimps.
It keeps them quiet, it keeps them engaged.
And to be honest, I've got to go, cos I've got a Zumba class
with Hulk, so adios.
Looking after chimps is expensive.
It costs 18,000 a year to look after one animal,
and they get through two and a half tonnes of food every week.
We have a diet board, which we'll be looking at and we'll be kind of
going through. They have a menu!
Yes, they have a menu. They eat better than I do!
Absolutely. Look at that! They eat better than a lot of us.
One thing that's always the staple is the banana. They're going to get that banana in every single bucket,
because that... That's contractual for chimps. Yes.
They will not work if there's no bananas on the horizon.
Yes, that is the highest value item we have. Number of chimps
in the bucket. You'll put that number of bananas in the bucket.
That I can do. OK? I might sneak a fruit in there, extra for him.
So everybody loves Pierre? Yes. What it is about, I mean obviously the name...
Everybody, when they meet Pierre, are kind of intimidated by him
because he does a lot of displays and he spits. He does a lot of spitting.
And he looks very intimidating when he gets all kind of erect and he's all poofy.
But he has the heart of a teddy bear.
Pierre and his friend Murphy were taken from West Africa as infants in
the 1970s, to be used in US labs for hepatitis B and HIV research.
CHATTERING
When the lab closed,
both chimps were moved to an animal orphanage in Texas,
where Michelle used to work.
When the sanctuary went bankrupt six years ago,
they all came to Chimp Haven together.
Now, this, I imagine, is your favourite part of the day.
Absolutely. A little bit of Pierre time.
This is what look forward to every day.
Hello, Pierre! Hey, Pierre! THEY MAKE CHIMP NOISES
Hello, my boy.
You're such a... Don't you spit at me, Pierre.
Don't spit at me, baby.
Oh, man, now this is...
That's the difference between someone who doesn't know a chimp and
somebody who really is familiar.
Look at that. He's getting tickled with a spoon.
It's quite a specific form of play, but...
Oh, Pierre. Yeah.
Just going to keep my eyes down,
going to defer to the beautiful Gallic boy.
So far, there's no spit, so...
Yeah, you're doing great.
He is extremely chilled with you guys.
Yes. The Pierre I saw yesterday was really revved up.
Michelle's sister, Mary,
also works here, and has a long history with Murphy and Pierre, too.
Is it fair to say that this is a landmark moment
coming up for Pierre, because...
Yeah. Very shortly, he's about to meet the ladies.
Yes, the ladies. So, in 16 years,
he's never been in the same enclosure as a girl?
Er, yeah. We've...
I'm not sure if actually he's ever been with ladies.
Do you think Michelle's going to be devastated if Pierre's eye falls
upon, say, Whitney or Jill? LAUGHTER
Is that... I worry for her sanity because, if Pierre's eyes...
I think she'll be OK. You think she's OK? Cos look, she's...
Yeah, I think she'll be OK. I'm not sure. LAUGHTER
I think it's actually... A little, I'm sure she'll be a little heartbroken.
I think Michelle might need some after-care.
Yeah, the bond they have is really, really a cool bond.
He is a beautiful soul. Yeah.
The chimps here are still captives, and that's important to remember.
You know, they're not free in the sense that they rely on human beings
to deliver their food and a lot of their basic needs.
But, getting to know the care staff...
you come to realise that, if they can't be in the wild,
then surely this is the next best thing.
The amount of love that is given to them.
Come on, Papa.
Mary and Michelle's slavish adoration of spitty Pierre.
This isn't just a job for the people here. It's a vocation.
CHIMPS HOOT
Hey, Papa. Yeah, if you just want to kind of toss it in to...
Oh, Papa! SUE SNIGGERS
Still, it's a work in progress, my relationship with him.
You know, I gave him half a lettuce and that's what I got for it.
It's a week until Pierre and Jill's groups meet each other for the first
time. Staff are keen to create larger, mixed sex groups, like in
the wild, as it makes the chimps less stressed
and more cooperative with one another.
Henry arrived at the sanctuary in 2009,
and his group have just joined a larger chimp family in a new,
more spacious enclosure.
Hi, Steve? Hi. I'm Sue. It's good to see you.
Nice to meet you, Sue. How's it going? Very well, thank you.
Tell me about this fellow here.
Well, right at the top is Henry and, you know,
it's interesting to see him here, you know, at Chimp Haven,
because he is a little bit different than all the other chimps here.
He's an ex-pet. Oh, OK.
So his life was very different.
You know, a lot of people have opinions about what the life of
a laboratory chimp is like.
His existence prior to coming to Chimp Haven was undeniably
terrible. He lived, probably about 15 years, just in someone's garage,
not with any other chimps, not with the proper conditions... Oh!
..without the proper diet, that's for sure, we know that.
And, when the authorities found him, he was completely malnourished.
But not only that, he had no idea, probably, that he was a chimp at all.
Tell me about his personality.
I mean, what kind of guy is Henry?
He picks his friends carefully.
He's unsure, you know, as we're introducing him to this new group,
about which of those other chimps might be his friends,
might not be his friends, so he wants to take the time to figure it out,
so you'll often see him separate himself voluntarily from the rest of
the social group while he sort of considers his options.
So have there been any studies in terms of the detrimental effect that
we have on the chimp population when they're in captivity?
Well, we've known, actually, for a long time that chimps that are taken
away from their mom develop in very different ways,
and very difficult ways.
And when we measured the cortisol levels in chimps that had a lot of
humans in their past lives versus chimps that had always been around
chimps, we found huge differences in stress.
So I can see there that he's reaching for
a blanket. Not a lot of blankets available in West Africa.
He lived so long on his own, he probably has attachment problems.
Maybe that blanket is serving the same way like a little teddy bear.
It's his security blanket. It's his security blanket.
I can't bear it. That's right.
I'm really mindful of the fact that, throughout our discussion,
he has remained up on the top, staring at you, staring at me.
That has a lot to do with his past and how he was raised, and just not
learning how to be a proper chimp. We have confidence that we're going to put him in certain circumstances
where he eventually will succeed, but it might be a bit slower for a chimp like Henry compared to another
chimp that was raised with others.
Seeing how Henry is struggling in his new group makes me worry about
how quiet and introverted Jill will cope when she's introduced
to the boys.
CHIMPS HOOT
Good morning.
You going to run? It's OK, Mama.
It's OK, Phyllis.
No, you don't feel safe?
I don't blame you.
Today, I'm going to meet the vet tasked with keeping the chimps
healthy, to understand the profound consequences of a life
lived in the lab.
All right, so welcome to the pharmacy.
Look at this! It's all go. I mean, this is well kitted out. LAUGHTER
Some of these tablets look a little familiar, at least to...
Yes. So something like doxycycline would be...
Is that a sort of, kind of antibiotic?
It is an antibiotic.
And, if you think about it, it's because we're so genetically
similar, our organ systems function the same way,
so we have some of the same medication options
and treatment of the same diseases.
This genetic similarity to humans is the reason chimpanzees like Jill
were used for medical research for so many years.
Here's Whitney. Where's Jill?
There's your girl, right here.
Hey, darling. Hey, darling.
Hey, Jill. Did you say hi?
She's always curious. Yes, she is.
She's always just silently watching on.
Yes. Each lab chimpanzee was assigned an identification number.
Jill was number 1555.
She has medical records spanning over 250 pages.
Well, we know she was born on the 9th of February... February of 1993.
..of 1993. By C section. Her genitalia is normal.
Yes. Just if you...Don't give me that look. I'm just, you know... LAUGHTER
Two nipples on the right side!
Yeah, so that's one of the identifying characteristics of Jill,
is that she has super...what we call supernumerary nipples on the right side.
So has she got one more than she...?
She has one more than she's supposed to. She's the Scaramanga of the...
She's the full James Bond villain. LAUGHTER
See, here, it also says that she was slightly blue at delivery.
They probably took her directly to the nursery.
So she never saw her mother?
Er, she probably saw her mom, but probably not for an extended period
of time. So she's born in captivity, born into the laboratory...
Mm-hm. At what age would the laboratory technicians
start infecting her?
She was utilised in hepatitis C research.
She was about two years old when she was utilised in those studies.
It's a hell of an autobiography, isn't it? It is. You know, it...
Data and... Absolutely. ..procedures! But one thing I can
say is that, having worked with chimps,
they're a very forgiving species.
But that makes it all just worse!
We may never know exactly what this chimpanzee has experienced
throughout its lifespan, but you know what?
This is a resilient species and this is a forgiving species,
and our goal is to make sure that these days are the best days of
their life, if we can. Yeah.
In the first ten years of Jill's life,
she was moved between labs around the country seven times.
This is, er...
This is going to be very difficult for me.
I have... I bury my head in the sand when it comes to animal cruelty.
I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
I know it exists, but I have absolutely no desire to interface with it.
But, of course, in this context, it is extremely important I do, so
we've managed to get footage of a laboratory.
Er...
This was filmed in 1986.
It turns out that it's exactly the same lab that Jill was at,
eight years later, aged one.
You know, I connected with Jill, and now it's time for me to watch what
she went through - or, if she didn't go through it,
what the chimps that arrived just eight years before her went through.
In this room, highly intelligent primates
have gone mad from isolation.
Never able to walk or to touch another living being,
they sit and rock themselves into eternity.
Infected with viral hepatitis, in February 1986,
chimpanzee number 1164, an older male, has gone mad.
Crouched on the metal slats at the bottom of his inner chamber,
number 1164 rocks incessantly and mumbles to himself.
The fact that chimpanzees are our closest living relatives did not
save him from living death.
Most of these toddlers, just two to three years old,
were shipped here from an Air Force Base.
If they do not enter a social group now,
their chances of being normal are practically nil.
Starved for contact,
this three-year-old screams when the isolate door is sealed.
CHIMP SCREAMS
That goes beyond medical testing,
well into the realms of deliberate cruelty.
How can you take a baby animal,
knowing it's going to live almost as long as the human,
and incarcerate it?!
I've flown to Washington, DC to visit
the National Institutes of Health, or NIH,
the government agency who were responsible for the federal research
on chimpanzees.
I feel pretty nervous this morning, because I'm not an academic and I'm
not a scientist. I'm just a member of the public who loves animals and
wants to know the benefit, if any,
of sticking needles into them after
ripping them from their natural environment.
The NIH is the largest funder of medical research in the world,
with an annual budget of over 30 billion.
They started using chimpanzees for medical testing in the 1960s.
Plaque here says that President Franklin D Roosevelt opened this
site in 1940, dedicated to furthering the health of
all mankind. And I guess what I want to know is,
is furthering the health of mankind
and that of animals mutually exclusive?
Dr Anderson became divisional director in 2010,
whilst experimentation on chimpanzees was still ongoing.
Dr Anderson? Yes...
He oversaw the NIH decision to end all chimp testing in the US
five years later.
If you were to give a snapshot of the diseases that chimps have, if
not been able to cure, but certainly improve,
what would that list encompass?
They've been particularly
useful in advancing human health in hepatitis A, B and C.
They were instrumental in allowing development of vaccines for A and B.
So chimpanzees have saved huge swathes of the population.
They've provided extraordinary medical benefits.
Chimpanzees have been very helpful in development of therapeutic
monoclonal antibodies, so-called biologics,
so these are now widely used for many types of cancer
and for immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis,
inflammatory bowel disease, where there just can be miracle cures.
Despite these medical breakthroughs in the first few decades of
chimpanzee testing, later success was harder to find.
DEMONSTRATORS CHANT
In the early '80s, America was hit by the AIDS epidemic,
and the NIH began a huge chimpanzee breeding programme
to provide test subjects.
Chimps were infected with human HIV, but, by the '90s,
scientists realised the disease doesn't turn into full-blown AIDS
in the animal model.
I can understand there was a rush to test.
How soon did you realise that the animal model wasn't going to provide
a vaccine for the human condition?
Probably about a decade.
The use of chimpanzees for HIV/AIDS research really dropped throughout
the '90s. I'm kind of interested to find out why that change happened in
the '90s. Did you precipitate that change,
or did public opinion push you?
I think it was probably a combination, but it's also the
recognition, in order to have a reliable animal model,
the animal has to be happy and be well taken care of,
otherwise you're studying animal stress,
you're not studying a response to a pathogen.
Why couldn't we see the way that they were being housed,
and why in some extreme cases were they being treated so appallingly?
I don't think it's defensible, really, any more,
the way they were originally treated.
By the early '90s, there were a whole set of new regulations
from NIH about housing -
that chimpanzees had to be socially housed, with the
recognition that they were social animals.
In 2015, the US government afforded captive chimpanzees the same
endangered species status as their wild cousins.
Shortly after, the NIH announced they'd no longer support research
involving chimps, ending all medical testing with chimpanzees.
Is there an element of this being based upon a recognition that the
chimps' best interests certainly weren't served,
and now they have the chance to get a decent quality of life, finally?
I'd put it more in the perspective of our whole approach to the use of
chimps has evolved over decades,
and the recognition that they are very special and they do deserve our respect. But it was not always thus.
Regrettably, no. Where do you draw the line between the benefits to mankind and the
suffering of animals?
Would you do anything to extend and preserve life free of disease?
You have people who say it's not appropriate to do any research on
animals at any time, and I respect that.
They came to that conclusion, and that's their opinion.
And then you'll find a mother who says,
"My child is suffering and dying from cancer.
"What are YOU going to do about that?"
And it's the mission of NIH to improve human health.
I'm amazed that someone speaking on behalf of the American government
about such a sensitive issue was so candid.
What I wasn't expecting was for him to just own it.
For Dr Anderson to turn around and go, "In retrospect,
"although I wasn't personally involved,
"I feel that we treated those animals badly."
But his point was that things have moved on and, you know,
they've learned those lessons, they've changed.
We all have our own views on whether animal testing was worth it.
For me, yes, I appreciate that millions of lives were saved,
but it's obvious that chimps are social animals,
so I still can't comprehend why they were kept in those conditions.
At Chimp Haven, some animals are still paying the price
for their life of medical testing.
40-year-old Cotton was retired in 2006,
after being used for HIV research.
Vet Raven has anaesthetised him
so she can give him a full health check.
You can see he's getting flaky.
We've probably got about 30 to 40-plus that have been exposed
to HIV-1 or 2, which is the human strain.
But Cotton is very special, isn't he?
Yes, Cotton has been exposed to SIVcpz.
Cotton was infected with the chimp form of HIV in an attempt to find a
human cure.
Unlike chimps infected with the human strain of HIV, who show no
symptoms, Cotton developed AIDS.
Ultimately, their concern wasn't the chimpanzee.
The concern was us, as humans,
and what can we do to give our counterparts a
better quality of life?
I have no response to stimuli.
Cotton's condition has been controlled by human anti-retroviral
drugs, and every six months he needs blood tests
to check his progress.
All right, yes, come on.
OK, so this is the blood work now for...
Yes, so this is the blood that is going to determine if he's still
doing well on anti-retroviral therapy.
It would have been very likely,
without medical intervention through the form of anti-retroviral therapy,
that Cotton likely would have had to have been euthanized.
He was not mounting a natural response to the typical day-to-day
pathogens that a chimp is going to run into.
And how far is Cotton into his retroviral therapy?
He's been on now almost two years.
And is there a time where you'd stop administering that,
or is he on that drug for life? No, he will be on this drug for life.
Hey, mister. You peeking at me? All right, we've got some blinkage.
He's looking at me, guys.
All right, he's good to go.
You can now touch him. I can now touch him? LAUGHTER
You can now touch him. Hey, Cotton.
This is what I want, a hand. Can I hold the hand? Mm-hm.
Twist.
Sweetheart.
Hey, mister.
I'm going to come round and...
There you go, mister.
Guess what, you're a superstar! Well done. All right.
There you go, buddy. You look good, mister.
Is it easy for him to get access to the drugs he needs,
so the human retrovirals?
If I'm honest, I have great difficulties,
because it had never been used or documented in a chimpanzee,
so it was very hard for me to get the drugs that are ultimately giving
Cotton a better quality of life right now.
But that just makes me furious.
The good thing is that we were able to solicit two pharmaceutical
companies that are willingly giving us the medications
for Cotton, free of cost.
He's done his bit.
He's done his job and he's now in retirement, and guess what?
He's living out a pretty good life.
After spending years being tested on to find a human cure,
Cotton will hopefully be kept alive by human drugs
for the rest of his life.
Having spent time getting to know the staff here,
I've begun to feel conflicted.
Many of them first worked with chimps in laboratories,
like Head of Animal Care, Kathleen.
What was your first engagement with chimps?
Well, I started working with chimpanzees in 1992.
One thing we need to understand,
I was going to work today and I was going to make a difference.
Sure, I understand.
And the same goes for so many people across the laboratory community.
What did your family and friends think of what you did?
My father uses his voice as an advocate, and
he's an animal rights activist, and, um, heck,
he even picketed outside my own lab at times.
However, it led to a very interesting conversation later on,
and we were able to share perspectives on how each of us felt
like we were helping.
Kathleen used to work at an infamous New York state laboratory called
LEMSIP, known for its poor housing conditions for the chimps.
There was extreme suffering at some points, and that's, I think,
hard for people to engage with and to accept.
I definitely can understand that.
However, I myself have received treatment that was tested previously
on animals, and so there's an appreciative aspect to what
research has provided in my life.
I, like you, have received medication
that inevitably was tested.
Right. I guess I would have liked to have known that they didn't have to
undergo unnecessary suffering.
And that's a really great point. I think that's what's hard. I completely agree with you.
Do you think there's a sense among people here who've worked in the
laboratory environment as a way of sort of expiating guilt or pain or
difficult feelings about the work that was done previously?
I know I don't hold guilt for what was done in the past,
because I felt like I was making a difference. Mmm.
My decision to put myself in that, in a laboratory,
was made specifically because I felt I was helping.
I didn't expect to meet people who'd worked in laboratory environments
and feel such kinship with them,
and to feel that they really do have
the animals' best interests at heart.
How strange that those I'd considered to be the bad guys now
lead the effort to give these chimps a new and better life.
GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS
It's the day before the boys are to be introduced to the girls.
When you see chimps like Jill and you connect with her,
you can't for a second understand
what she's been through,
but what gives me some hope is that she's about
to be introduced to what will end up being her family for life, you know,
a group of four male chimps who will interact with her and play with her
and take care of her, who she can take care of.
That makes me happy.
Let's see who's out. Who's here? No-one!
Nobody's there. Classic. LAUGHTER
It would be too stressful for the chimps to have strangers like me
around when they're getting introduced.
Jill! Martha!
Paula!
But, before her big day,
I want to check in with chimpanzee number 1555,
also known as Jill.
Oh, there she is!
Hello, Jill!
She's away from us a bit, and, you know, that's the ideal, in the end, isn't it,
that they have their own community and they're inward-facing, rather than... And these guys.
Exactly. You know, I and they have the opportunity to choose whether they want to...
What we call chimp's chimp. Jill is what we call a chimp's chimp.
But it's nice that she's chosen to come out for a little bit, even.
Here she is. I think you've made a connection.
I think she likes you.
Jill first caught my eye because she alarm-barked just before Pierre spat
at me in the face,
and because I just had a connection with her that maybe supersedes my
linguistic ability to communicate it to you.
And the next thing I know about Jill is that awful,
disturbing footage of the very laboratory that she was in
some eight years later.
I understand a little bit the reasons behind her aloofness,
the reasons why she's not the first to come up to the grille and look at
a human being again, because, for her,
maybe we're not the caregivers.
Maybe, for her, we're the problem.
To get a front-row view of the girls' and boys' first meeting,
we set up cameras to record the seminal moment in the lives
of these ten chimpanzees.
EVOCATIVE MUSIC PLAYS
CHIMPS HOOT
The boys and girls have been moved to enclosures next to one another
before the introduction begins.
Amy is going to decode the chimpanzees' first meeting for me.
This is the girls.
The boys are on the other side.
There he is. There's Pierre.
Pierre's getting quite wound up there.
He's displaying, just letting everyone know that he's the tough guy in charge.
PIERRE SCREECHES
That's the door opening.
That's Rero and Whitney, and they just cross and do nothing.
Totally ignored the fact that there was a girl.
This is Hulk, and he's not so sure what he should be doing.
Paula-Jean... Paula said hello to him, and now she's fear-grinning.
SCREECHING
Rero starts screaming to Pierre.
He doesn't know what's kind of happening.
And there's a little disagreement,
and then they're reassuring each other with the touching.
They haven't been with girls before, and
all of a sudden all these girls are in their enclosure,
and they're together. SCREECHING
They are looking at each other,
trying to figure out what they should do.
That's a reassurance hug.
So who are these two? That's Martha and Murphy.
So then you see they're both fear-grinning. Aaww!
"We're scared, we're nervous,
"but we're going to reassure each other by hugging and touching."
And then he's inspecting her sex swelling.
He's inspecting her...? Sex swelling. Her bottom. Sex swelling!
Yes. So that's a very affiliative and pro-social thing that they do.
She's no lady to let him do that on a first meet. LAUGHTER
There's Jill.
So Jill's doing some hugging.
Yeah, I think you'll be very proud of her.
I'm already proud, because she was so reticent.
What's this? OK, so that's a really important behaviour.
She puts his hand in her mouth.
He's trusting her not to bite his hand.
He literally put his hand in her mouth. Mmm!
That's almost a submissive thing from him.
Jill! Watch.
And Hulk completely acts like there's not another chimp there. LAUGHTER
Oh, no! Right? Jill's been dissed!
Jill's been thrown some serious shade there.
Yeah. I think it's mostly because Hulk was scared.
But Murphy's trying to be playful.
Oh, she's scared. A bit scared. A little bit scared.
Then, look, he does the, "It's OK," reach out with his hand to her,
and now she's panting and bobbing, so being a little bit submissive,
but he's panting back to her, so that's again friendly.
This is quite an interesting one-on-one little dance going on.
Yeah. He's very interested.
He keeps sitting down. Again, that kind of makes him smaller,
and he's reaching out, saying,
"It's OK, I'm not going to hurt you."
They have a little kiss!
I can't bear it! How sweet is that?
They're playing pat-a-cake!
And you can see how relaxed they both look.
And Pierre is wild-born,
so probably lived with his mother for a period of time
and learned some of these social behaviours. Yeah.
HOOTING
OK, so here Murphy chases a little bit after Jill.
He's saying,
"I'm still the tough guy," basically,
but they make up very quickly afterwards.
But he got a little rough, and so she's scared.
Now she's going over to Pierre, who's holding out his hand to her.
Look at that! Conciliatory Pierre.
Isn't that interesting, now there are girls there,
that his role as the boss has moved much more into,
"I'm going to, I'm actually going to be gentle and careful and caring"?
There are different types of alpha males,
and what you said is exactly what it seems that Pierre will be.
A nurturing alpha male. A nurturing alpha.
So she's not sure about Pierre.
Then he's like, "Come on, let's play." LAUGHTER
It's so intimate, isn't it? Yes.
You can see them both shaking and, again, that's the panting.
And her muzzle is inside Pierre's mouth at that point,
so again she's trusting him not to bite her.
Like an old romantic Hollywood kiss!
When the woman is slightly obscured from view.
So Jill's become quite an object of...
I mean, she's got two boys interested. LAUGHTER
They're enthralled by one another, aren't they? Right.
She is such a flirt! LAUGHTER
That's a proper snog, isn't it, that one? She loves him. LAUGHTER
I loved watching that.
I could watch that for hours and hours and hours. It is fascinating.
But how extraordinary that a chimp like Jill,
who's so background... Right?
..and there she is with two of the alpha males. Right. LAUGHTER
She's now the belle of the ball. She did fabulous.
Hello! I can't leave without checking in on Jill,
Pierre and their new chimp forever family.
Hey, girl. SHE PANTS
Good girl. Hi, Whitney!
Ladies!
Just feels different. The energy's completely changed.
This is Pierre right here. He's not gobbing on me!
There you go.
SHE SIGHS Spit-free Susan.
I'm amazed, though, by the change in atmosphere.
Energetically, it's really shifted.
They're just happy, aren't they? So, I mean, that's what your job's all about, isn't it? Yeah.
You agree, yeah? LAUGHTER
You found love yet? LAUGHTER
That was nothing short of extraordinary.
I'm so proud of shy Jill - not shy any more -
so central to them all getting along.
Oh, it's just magnificent, you know? It really, really is.
It's just feels like that group's been together forever.
Simply, girls meeting some boys for the first time
and realising you're home.
Jill and Pierre's group have successfully formed their chimpanzee
troop, and will be able to enjoy life in a forest home soon.
From the lab to the lap of luxury. It worked out all right in the end.
Take it easy, guys.
Jill, lovely Jill,
and Pierre, sometimes lovely Pierre,
are just two stories amongst the 200-odd that are happening and
evolving every single day here at Chimp Haven.
200-plus more chimps to come.
And if we can do anything for these animals,
it's to lift them from the dry pages of scientific data and make them
real, because every time we make an animal real and flesh it out and
inhabit its experiences, we stand a better chance of treating it
with dignity and respect.