A chimpanzee explores the new environment of his retirement home. He used to be held by the Dutch Biomedical Primate Research Centre for animal testing. Image: AFP

HILVARENBEEK, The Netherlands, 7 July 2006 - Wary of the open space and the curious crowds, 13 chimpanzees long confined to research labs - some for up to three decades - are trying out their new "retirement home", in part sponsored by the Dutch government.

Coaxed outside by fruit treats, the former denizens of the Dutch Biomedical Primate Research Centre for animal testing appear apprehensive of their new, improved surroundings.

"It's quite scary for them, they are used to barred cages and concrete floors and now they have sand and water," animal keeper Loek van Hoek, said.

The colony now has several large islands to call home each filled with trees, climbing frames and swings with a view of the herd of rhinoceros and gazelle in the neighbouring enclosures.

One of the older males, who was captured in Sierra Leone in the 1960s when he was just a baby and spent most of his life in the research centre, ventured outside but always kept a hand on the perimeter wall.

"He doesn't want to lose contact with the building," Van Hoek explained.

"One of the other males has been sitting inside in front of the window, he's been sitting there all week looking but he won't come out."

The animal keeper who has cared for the chimps for 30 years in the research centre, the largest primate research centre in Europe, is also going to look after them in their new home in the Beekse Bergen safari park in the southern Netherlands.

"It is great to see that the animals are finally getting the kind of environment I have wanted for them for so long," he said.
The animals housed in Beekse Bergen have all been given a clean bill of health.

"The chimpanzees were actually very rarely used in the BPRC for tests. We would use two to four each year for research into vaccines for malaria, AIDS and hepatitis. Any chimpanzee that got infected with one of these diseases is going to a special care centre set up as their retirement home," Peter Heidt of the BPRC explained.

In 2004 the Netherlands banned testing on anthropoid apes such as chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas. Other monkeys are still used for tests in the centre but Dutch law specifies that tests on primates can only be carried out if there are no alternatives. The BPRC, financed by the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science, currently has some 1,250 primates, mostly rhesus monkeys used for research.

When the centre stopped tests on chimpanzees in 2004 they had a population of 160. Some 80 animals have already been placed in zoos in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France and Germany, professor Heidt said.

The Beekse Bergen safari park will house another group of chimps in early 2007, making a total of 33 former lab apes from the BPRC. Another 20 chimps will be kept in the Dutch Dierenpark Amersfoort zoo. A total of 28 infected animals will move to the special care unit.

The Beekse Bergen is the largest wildlife park in the Benelux region and keeps 1,500 animals from 150 different species including elephants, hyenas, giraffes, wildebeest, warthogs, tigers and African wild dogs on a huge estate of 110 hectares. The enclosures are designed to look like the animals' African habitat.

The huge park promises visitors a piece of Africa in the Netherlands. It has specialised in keeping not one or two animals of each species but has herds of wildebeest, zebras and colonies of monkeys.

The Dutch government partly financed this unique re-housing scheme for ex-lab animals with a 3.8 million-euro (US$4.9 million) donation and Minister of Education, Culture and Science Maria van der Hoeven, was at hand Tuesday to open the new chimpanzee enclosure.

"The Dutch government has been involved with the whole history of laboratory animals and now that the monkeys can retire we must make sure there is a suitable solution for them," she said.

"The real winner of this story are the retired laboratory animals."