Carole Noon, Provides The Largest Sanctuary

ST. LUCIE COUNTY, FL -- Before Dr. Carole Noon moved to St. Lucie County, there were no chimpanzees.

Now it's become the chimp capital of the world - the largest sanctuary of its kind.

"She was the most remarkable, strong-willed lover of chimpanzees, one of the funniest women I knew," says Jen Feuerstein, interim director of the Save the Chimps sanctuary.

Dr. Noon started studying chimpanzees in the mid-eighties, inspired by the legendary Jane Goodall. She worked at a chimp sanctuary in Africa, then set her sites on creating a similar haven in the U.S. for animals that had spent their lives in laboratories and cages.

"You gotta figure if you’ve lived in a cement box for 40 years you’re going to want to go on a road trip, too," Dr. Noon told Newschannel 5 in a 2006 interview.

Her first target - the so-called "chimp-anauts" - the chimpanzees used by NASA in the early space program.

"No they didn't just hand them over to her," says Feuerstein.

Dr. Noon had to sue the Air Force to get them, settling out of court for 21 chimpanzees.

Noon won converts to her cause, and collected donations, enough to build a sprawling 150 acre chimp sanctuary in western St. Lucie County.

Soon after she established the sanctuary, its population grew tremendously. Noon acquired 266 chimps from a charitable foundation. It had recovered the animals from laboratory testing in New Mexico.

"And overnight Save the Chimps became the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary," recalls Feuerstein.

She says it could not have happened with out Carole Noon, a woman with a will to fight, and a soft spot in her heart.

"Carole adored them. They were her next door neighbors. She built this city for them and she moved in when they did and they shared this place together," she says.

Carole Noon died over the weekend after battling a terminal illness for 3 months.

Feuerstein says the Save the Chimps foundation will try to continue her legacy, by transferring the remaining chimpanzees from the lab in New Mexico, to the sanctuary in St. Lucie County."

If you'd like to learn more about the group, visit: www.savethechimps.org

Source