14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, the National Institutes of Health in the United States announced that they wished to retire most of the chimpanzees currently held in laboratories and experimented on.
The Chimp Haven sanctuary in Keithville, Louisiana has already welcomed several retired primates.
The video above shows the retired chimpanzees getting familiar with their new surroundings.
As the staff at Chimp Haven explains, some of these primates have never before had the opportunity to walk on grass or gaze at the sky, simply because they have been kept in cages for most of their lives.
Hence the look of sheer amazement on their faces when they first walk into their enclosures.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service intends to soon list both captive and wild chimps as endangered animals.
Once they benefit from legal protection, captive chimpanzees will hopefully no longer be abused by entertainers and people who want to experiment on them.