Chimps finally get chance to monkey around

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The delicious aromas, the heaps of fresh fruits and vegetables, the solicitous staff — they all suggest a kitchen at some tony spa catering to treasured customers. And in a way that's what it is.

Outside, beyond a lawn, are two buildings on a little lake with a grassy island.

That's where the guests live, 25 of them, most retired from grueling decades in aerospace and medical research, a few from the phony glare of show biz.

Now, at this 200-acre spread, they live under the devoted care of Dr. Carole Noon and a staff of six. The guests didn't get here on their own. It took a five-year legal fight.

Last year, Noon rescued 20 chimpanzees from a lab in New Mexico. In September, she won her biggest battle yet, and now she has to figure out how to make a home for 266 more.

The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care is tucked amid orange groves and cattle ranches. From nearby roads, you would never know it was there, and that's the intention.

The center is not a zoo. At this point it's not open to the public, although there are plans for a museum and education center. Its purpose is to provide a sanctuary where chimps who cannot be released in the wild can live out their lives in a semblance of natural conditions.

"The idea is for these chimps to be chimps," Noon says. "They've earned it."

These are formidable animals. Forget those darling baby chimps in diapers that make everyone want one for a pet. They outgrow that stage much faster than human babies do; by age 3, a chimp is as strong as an adult human.

These adolescents and adults range in age from 10 to 41. They weigh 90 to 170 pounds, stand about 5 feet tall, have a reach a prizefighter would envy and boast a scary set of teeth.

Eight of the chimps at the center were captured as infants in the wild. They were among 65 babies taken from Africa starting in the late 1950s and used to create a breeding group at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The chimps were used for early space program research. Among the research chimps were "chimponauts" Ham and Enos, who were both shot into space.

Later, the chimps were used for other kinds of research, such as testing seat belts. By the 1970s, the Air Force began to lease the chimps to researchers.