Her caretakers describe the 25-year-old as the most insecure of her clan. She screams constantly, and loudly, for very little reason.Scott Carpenter, one of the original seven NASA Mercury astronauts, and Robert Crippen, a former space shuttle commander, paid their respects Thursday to Tammy and her kind -- the species that beat both men and the human race to space. "I have great respect for space travelers more senior than I," Carpenter said in front of a replica of a space capsule that stands in front of one of a dozen "chimp islands."
The two retired astronauts toured the Save the Chimps Sanctuary to help bring attention to the nonprofit's cause: caring for chimpanzees used in the name of U.S. science.
Most of the organization's 283 chimps -- about half of them in Fort Pierce, the other half in New Mexico -- were used in medical research.
Other chimps were used as pets and entertainment.But, for about a decade, the man-made island in Fort Pierce, about a half-hour drive south of the Brevard-Indian River County line, has been home to 21 Air Force chimps retired from the space program. More research chimps have joined them during the years.
Save the Chimps sued the Air Force and got custody of the former space program chimps in 1999.
Another 134 chimps reside at the organization's other temporary facility, the Coulston Foundation, a defunct medical laboratory in Alamogordo, N.M., that lost federal funding in 2002 for Animal Welfare Act violations.
Save the Chimps plans to bring all of those chimps to the Fort Pierce facility, making it the largest chimp sanctuary in the world.
They transport 10 chimps at a time from New Mexico, in what they're calling "the Great Chimpanzee Migration." It costs $2,500 per chimp to bring them to Florida.
Save the Chimps operates on about a $4 million budget, with roughly 55 percent of that spent at the Florida facility. The sanctuary is closed to the general public, to prevent stress to the animals.
Island living
Crippen paid similar homage to the descendants of some of his simian space program peers.
"These animals and their ancestors opened up some gates," he said. "It is most important that they get a good retirement home right here in Florida where we all live."
For Crippen, it was his second visit to the sanctuary.
The chimps live on a dozen 3-acre islands that make up the 150-acre sanctuary -- a series of hills built on former citrus pasture and flooded to create islands.
Each compatible chimp group -- of up to 30 chimps -- gets its own island.
A 14- to 17-foot deep canal lined with cattails surrounds the islands.
The chimps sometimes play at the water's edge, but typically are too top-heavy to swim very far and tend to sink, the sanctuary officials said.
They can roam freely between the islands, through caged-in areas and their concrete buildings where they feed and take shelter. The buildings can sustain hurricane-strength winds.
Male chimps get vasectomies. But several vasectomies failed, resulting in three baby chimps being born in recent years. So now, females get birth control put in their juice.
Save the Chimps founder Carole Noon sued for permanent custody of the retired Air Force chimps. Those chimps slowly have been joined by chimps the organization took over from the Coulston Foundation.
The Arcus Foundation, a Michigan nonprofit organization, helped to establish the Florida chimp sanctuary in 1997, with a grant and a commitment to match donations, dollar for dollar.
In the 1950s, 65 baby chimps were captured in Africa and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Chimps were used in balloon and rocket studies, subgravity experiments, escape physiology and rapid deceleration testing. They were exposed to G-forces in rocket sleds, brain electrodes, continuing blood tests and biopsies of other organs.
The most famous of the "chimponauts" were Ham and Enos, who both were launched into space from Cape Canaveral. Ham preceded Alan Shepard's flight to become the first American in space, and Enos came before John Glenn's circumnavigation of Earth.
"They were very important in the early days," Carpenter said, as chimps frolicked along one of the islands behind him. "We used them in the early space program to make sure we weren't physiologically stressing humans."
But when it comes to handling gravity's forces, chimps may have even more of the right stuff than aviators such as Carpenter and Crippen.
"We know now that they are so tough. I wonder if they were a good test subject. They're a lot stronger than us," Carpenter said.
Pigs made better test subjects, he said, because their physiological tolerances are closer to those of humans.
About 1,100 chimps continue to sacrifice in medical testing because of their DNA similarities to humans.
Retirement home
While both Ham and Enos are dead, their colleagues and other chimps enjoy the peaceful retirement at the Fort Pierce artificial islands.
Staff members play with the chimps from outside the cages, but never interact without steel in between.
"We're here to be their servants," said Jen Feuerstein, the sanctuary's director. "They've been ours for so long."
Island living
Crippen paid similar homage to the descendants of some of his simian space program peers."These animals and their ancestors opened up some gates," he said. "It is most important that they get a good retirement home right here in Florida where we all live."
For Crippen, it was his second visit to the sanctuary.
The chimps live on a dozen 3-acre islands that make up the 150-acre sanctuary -- a series of hills built on former citrus pasture and flooded to create islands.
Each compatible chimp group -- of up to 30 chimps -- gets its own island.
A 14- to 17-foot deep canal lined with cattails surrounds the islands.
The chimps sometimes play at the water's edge, but typically are too top-heavy to swim very far and tend to sink, the sanctuary officials said.They can roam freely between the islands, through caged-in areas and their concrete buildings where they feed and take shelter. The buildings can sustain hurricane-strength winds.
Male chimps get vasectomies. But several vasectomies failed, resulting in three baby chimps being born in recent years. So now, females get birth control put in their juice.
Save the Chimps founder Carole Noon sued for permanent custody of the retired Air Force chimps. Those chimps slowly have been joined by chimps the organization took over from the Coulston Foundation.The Arcus Foundation, a Michigan nonprofit organization, helped to establish the Florida chimp sanctuary in 1997, with a grant and a commitment to match donations, dollar for dollar.
In the 1950s, 65 baby chimps were captured in Africa and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Chimps were used in balloon and rocket studies, subgravity experiments, escape physiology and rapid deceleration testing. They were exposed to G-forces in rocket sleds, brain electrodes, continuing blood tests and biopsies of other organs.The most famous of the "chimponauts" were Ham and Enos, who both were launched into space from Cape Canaveral. Ham preceded Alan Shepard's flight to become the first American in space, and Enos came before John Glenn's circumnavigation of Earth."They were very important in the early days," Carpenter said, as chimps frolicked along one of the islands behind him. "We used them in the early space program to make sure we weren't physiologically stressing humans."
But when it comes to handling gravity's forces, chimps may have even more of the right stuff than aviators such as Carpenter and Crippen.
"We know now that they are so tough. I wonder if they were a good test subject. They're a lot stronger than us," Carpenter said.
Pigs made better test subjects, he said, because their physiological tolerances are closer to those of humans.
About 1,100 chimps continue to sacrifice in medical testing because of their DNA similarities to humans."Source
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