Like prisoners emerging from a lifetime behind bars, a group of chimps step blinking into the sunlight. A beautiful video can be found at the foot of this article.
This is the first time they have felt grass under their feet and breathed fresh air for 30 years. A few of the chimps were born in captivity but most were kidnapped from African jungles as babies and flown to Europe, where they were locked in metal laboratory cages to be used in a long series of experiments. Unfortunately It was far too late to release them back into the wild, they wouldn’t know how to survived against predators or adapt to ape culture at this age.
Their ordeal finally ended when 38 of the surviving chimps were released into a sanctuary in Austria called Gut Aiderbichl, allowing them to feel the nurturing contact of their fellow chimps after years of being separated by bars and bullet-proof glass.
As you can see from the picture above, and the video below, to start with they seem tentative, with non of the chips wanting to make the first move but soon there intrigue takes over which is a beautiful sight to see.
