Philadelphia Weekly

In the sleepy suburban town of Perkasie, 30 miles north of Philadelphia, sits a warehouse facility of an unusual sort. For 47 years the Buckshire Corporation operated with little notice--until recently, when it retired seven chimpanzees previously used for breeding and in hepatitis B vaccine trials.

Annie, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy, Negra and Burrito recently headed west to Cle Elum, Wash., on a three-day cross-country journey through heat waves and rainstorms.

Build it and they will come.

That's what Keith LaChappelle believed when he built this retirement sanctuary. "The thought that chimpanzees could live in 5-by-5-by-7-foot cages for their entire life, which could be up to 50 or 60 years, seemed very cruel."

"Chimps are expensive to house and maintain. Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest [CSNW] has assumed a tremendous responsibility," says Sharon Hursh, the Buckshire Corporation's president.

The first chimpanzees of CSNW are Buckshire Corporation's last. Hursh says her company has been housing and leasing chimpanzees since 1971. But they're no longer breeding, and these retirees haven't been used since 1996. For the last dozen years they've languished behind bars in a windowless basement under the glare of fluorescent lights.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, there are an estimated 1,200 chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories. In 2003 LaChappelle realized the need for sanctuaries to provide rehabilitation and lifelong care, and with a dedicated group of volunteers, he built CSNW for $280,000.

Shying away from the spotlight the morning of the chimps' arrival, LaChappelle concentrated on the logistics--testing locks and securing doors.

His chimpanzee field of dreams opened earlier this month. Its residents pulled into the gravel driveway, past the quarterhorses, under the watchful eye of a black cat, lured in by the unfamiliar odors.

"Uh hah, hah, uh, hah, hah hah," panted Diana Goodrich, director of outreach at CSNW, bobbing her curls and revealing her bottom teeth, a chimpanzee expression for play.

Burrito rattled his steel transport cage and grinned, exhibiting threat behavior. When a chimpanzee displays his top teeth, he's showing fear.

Cage match: Negra, who was wild caught in Africa, has a unique perspective on confinement.

"It's okay, don't worry," Richard Shive whispered. Shive, the chimpanzees' caregiver for 20 years at Buckshire, accompanied them to CSNW.

Their path into research was more varied than the journey out.

Burrito was born in a laboratory. Negra was wild caught in Africa, when it was still legal to do so--when hunters would kill mother chimps to steal their babies. Jamie had a short-lived career in entertainment.

Besides Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jake Eisenhart, and former Miss Pennsylvania Maureen Victoria Wimmer, perhaps Perkasie's most famous resident was a chimpanzee named Oliver, who's now retired in a Texas sanctuary. Marketed as the missing link between humans and chimpanzees, Oliver appeared on Japanese TV and promoted concerts for the Monkees before serving time at Buckshire.