First Person: Linda Brent

The reason chimpanzees are so fascinating is because they’re genetically, physically and behaviourally similar to us. People are often shocked to see that they have fingerprints or that they laugh, hold hands and kiss. But the idea of chimps having their own retirement home can be a bigger surprise.

Although chimps are endangered, there is a surplus chimpanzee crisis in the US, with 1,000 used in research, 300 in the entertainment industry and hundreds more as pets.

The influx began during the 1960s, when the air force brought chimps in from the wild for a large-scale colony to assist the space programme. Then, in 1986, the government initiated an aggressive breeding plan, funding laboratories to produce large numbers of chimpanzees for HIV research.

During the next 10 years, it became clear that chimps weren’t the animal model that people had anticipated, leaving the government with huge numbers of unwanted chimps. Once they reach adolescence, they become so big and aggressive that no one wants them. They live into their sixties and cost about $15,000 a year to care for. African sanctuaries are overflowing, and even if there was somewhere to put them, captive-born chimps would have no sense of finding food or avoiding predators. They would be lost.

The need to stop breeding chimps and to find a cost-effective way of caring for them led in 2000 to the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act, which set up a federally supported system of chimpanzee sanctuaries. Chimp Haven was awarded a contract to operate as the national retirement home for chimpanzees.

We’re located within a nature park in Louisiana on 200 acres of land. Each wing of the facility has six large, heated bedrooms with a hammock, blankets and skylight. A couple of times we’ve had chimps with illnesses or injuries so we’ll give them a TV in their room. Some of them even carry around a stuffed animal or a comfort blanket.

After a full day, the chimps like to go to bed as early as five or six o’clock but they’re never locked in or out at night. They have the normal sexual behaviour that they would have at any other time, so the males here have all had vasectomies. What could be better in your retirement years?

A huge part of the day is monitoring the social dynamics and seeing who’s getting along with who. We use introduction rooms to integrate new chimps; we call it a “howdy”. There will be a chimp on one side and a group on the other. If they look like they’re happy and interested in interacting, we open up the doors and put them together. If they don’t, we have to try a different combination. It’s a difficult process as some clinics would have kept chimps alone in relatively small spaces for years and that’s hard for them because they’re as sociable as we are. Most of those born in captivity would not have walked on grass before, so naturally they’re afraid of going out into the open. They hug the wall for security because it’s all they’ve ever known.

With research chimps, it’s more the relationship with people that needs to be repaired. Some have been used in invasive medical research, so it takes time to develop trust with our staff and learn that we’re the good guys.

When people ask if I think chimps should never have been taken in the first place, I take a long-term view. Fifty years ago, people probably didn’t have any concept of what chimpanzees were like, but the world around us is expanding so rapidly that the way we think about our responsibility has changed dramatically. Most of us here would like to see the day when we’re out of business because that would mean the problem we’re addressing has been solved. Until then, it’s their house and we’re here for them.