Most of the ex-laboratory chimpanzees were kept in an experimental laboratory for 30 years, without contact with other chimpanzees in a very small space. Animal experiments on apes have been banned in Austria since 1997 and since then the chimpanzees have been reclaiming their lives. The management and care of the animals was taken over by Gut Aiderbichl from a bankruptcy estate in 2009 and they have been under our protection ever since. Spätzle was always a self-confident, rather dominant chimpanzee, but she has learned to take a back seat in the group and be more sensitive. She is clearly the strategist and the superior one. Spätzle was the first in the outdoor enclosure and walked headfirst around the entire netted enclosure as if she wanted to charge into life. She began to pluck blades of grass and nibble on them, something the others soon imitated. Today, she prefers to sit high up on the tree structure. When we first met her, Spätzle was still very shy and kept to herself. Now she is very curious about visitors and sits very close to the fence. Spätzle loves mangoes and carrots. She was also the first to dismantle our miniature cameras without damaging them and then dismantled the camera into its smallest individual parts. Every day she surprises us with her creations. Hoses become swings and hard plastic toys or scraps of jute become body jewelry.
