Story by Christine Tibbetts

Photos by G. W. Tibbetts

tibbetts1@bellsouth.net

Shreveport celebrated Mardi Gras without me this year but I wore the green and gold and purple beads I caught there a few years ago in a frenzy during their family-friendly, get-ready-for-Lent parade.

Fought some little kids to get them. That’s what happens, even in the no alcohol Mardi Gras towns, or parade quadrants. Competition reigns.

The rest of the year in Shreveport is friendlier and that’s what I was looking for on my second visit to this city on the Red River.

Chimpanzees. I went to Louisiana to find some. Retired chimps to be specific. Retired from the entertainment business, and medical research.

There really are all sorts of ways to shape up a vacation, or choose a destination for a change-of-pace long weekend.

"Get a life," some people told me when I declared this travel mission before going. You won’t be one of those doubters if you choose to go to Chimp Haven.

Congress authorized this place as a sanctuary nine years ago. Politics aside, consider these chimps official. For sure they’re charming, and their caretakers treat them with dignity and kindness.

The 141 chimps living here dine on apples, bananas, onions, pears, bell peppers and okra.

Also, chewing gum, Ensure because they’re old and juice from little boxes with straws. Chimpanzee behaviorist Amy Fultz is teaching these indoor chimps to learn to love the outdoors in the 200-forested acres of the nation’s only chimp Sanctuary.

"Chimps need groups and space," Fultz says. "In the wild they live with 20, or up to 100 chimps." Sounded like friendship to me.

No invasive research happens here, but Fultz says they are learning how to cook and care for an aging population.