A touching video captured the moment a chimpanzee, who has been caged her entire life, exploded with joy after seeing the open sky for the first time.
Vanilla the chimpanzee is a 29-year-old survivor of New York's infamous Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP).
She lived in the notorious laboratory - which closed in 1997 - until she was two years old. She was then among a group transferred to a Californian rescue facility, where she was confined to a larger enclosure but was unable to see the sky clearly through the fenced roof.
However, the refuge officially shut down in 2019 so Vanilla was once again without a home, like 480 other animals - including 42 chimps - who lived there. Rescuers then scrambled to rehome all the primates, with Vanilla being among the final seven to be moved.
The primate and her family were finally moved to their new home at the Save the Chimps sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The sanctuary's primatologist, Dr. Andrew Halloran, shared a heartwarming video of the exact moment Vanilla was welcomed to her new home with a hug from alpha male Dwight and 18 other primates.
Vanilla looked overjoyed as she was greeted with open arms by more of her housemates, and continued to look at the sky in shock. The emotional footage also shows her excitedly running around the three-acre island and sitting with her new family, who were grooming each other.
Speaking to The New York Post, Halloran said: "In California, Vanilla lived with a handful of chimps inside a chain-link fence cage with no grass and very little enrichment."
The primatologist said that when Vanilla is not exploring her island with the other chimpanzees, she sits on top of a three-story climbing platform gazing at her new world. She also lives on one of 12 islands, which are split from each other by small waterbeds so that the chimps can have their own personal space.
Dr. Halloran revealed that she gets on well with her new brood and she has a special relationship with Dwight, from whom she sometimes steals food.
Founded by Caroline Noon in 1997, Save the Chimps is one of the largest chimpanzee sanctuaries in the world.
The non-profit charity was founded in response to the U.S. Air Force’s announcement that it would no longer conduct research on chimpanzees. It is committed to rescuing animals who have been kept as pets, used in laboratory testing, and in the entertainment industry.
Since its founding, it has been home to 330 chimpanzees in need.
