HIAWASSEE, Ga. – Upon final approval from the Towns County Board of Education, high school biology students will have an opportunity to visit the newest chimpanzee sanctuary in the United States this March.

Project Chimps is a chimpanzee sanctuary, founded to provide lifetime care to more than 200 former research chimpanzees at its sanctuary, located nearby on 236-acres of forested land in Morganton, Georgia. A total of 59 chimps currently reside at the habitat.

Noel, a peacemaking, middle-ranking chimp in a group of nine.

“Project Chimps has an agreement with the medical research facility that has the largest population of privately-owned chimpanzees in the world, which allows us to bring the lab’s chimpanzees to permanent sanctuary,”the  Project Chimps website explains, “We now in the process of transferring these intelligent and sentient beings from the lab to their new homes, where they will spend the remainder of their lives. At Project Chimps, we are able to provide former research chimpanzees with choices they never had in the lab. Here, they can choose to go outside and forage in our six-acre Peachtree Habitat. They can choose to climb a tree. They can choose their own healthy foods. They can even choose their friends.”

The chimpanzee sanctuary is a non-profit organization, funded by donations, grant funds, and corporate sponsorships.

Additional information is available at Project Chimps.

Feature Photo: Emma, a 13-year-old chimpanzee, residing at the Project Chimps sanctuary.