Video Shows Touching Moment When Caged Chip Sees Sky For The First Time

The island refuge is home to 226 chimpanzees discarded from laboratories, the entertainment industry, the exotic pet trade and roadside zoos.

A touching video has captured the moment a chimpanzee saw the open sky after arriving at a sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the United States. Vanilla the chimpanzee has never been out of a 5-foot-square cage until it moved to Save the Chimps sanctuary. The staff there shot a video of the chimpanzee looking at the sky in awe and the exploring its new home in the sunlight. The video has been posted on the YouTube channel of the sanctuary.

According to a page on Vanilla on Save the Chimps website, it spent its early years in a biomedical research laboratory, which closed in 1997. In the lab, Vanilla lived in a cage suspended from the ground like bird cages.

Vanilla was among 30 chimpanzees to be sent to the Wildlife Waystation in 1995 where it joined a small family group.