Fast facts
>According to the nonprofit Save the Chimps, population numbers for chimps used to be in the millions. Now, there are only roughly 170,000-300,000 left in Africa.>Differences between communities of chimps can be so drastic and so profound that researchers consider them akin to cultural differences. “Just as a person in the US differs culturally from a person in Japan, for example, so does a chimp in Gombe, Tanzania differ culturally from a chimp in Tai Forest, Ivory Coast,” according to Save the Chimps’ website.
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To learn more about Project Chimps or to donate, visit projectchimps.org.
Thirteen-year-old Latricia is known to all as the quintessentially goofy girl. She’s known for making faces and doing headstands, and she often carries around a stuffed, plush Tigger toy.
She may sound like someone you know, but Latricia isn’t human. She is one of the original nine chimpanzees brought to Project Chimps, a new, one-of-a-kind, 236-acre sanctuary in Blue Ridge, Georgia, tucked at the edge of the Chattahoochee National Forest, just under two hours from Chattanooga.
Created for the sole purpose of housing up to several hundred primates who have spent their lives as test subjects in medical facilities and research centers, many of the sanctuary’s chimps have been deprived of the outdoors completely. They have never touched grass, much less experienced their natural habitat.