A 28-YEAR-OLD formerly captive chimp set the internet alight this week when video footage of her seeing sky for the first time went viral.

Vanilla spent her formative years behind bars in a New York laboratory before intervention saw her, together with 30 other captive chimps, relocated to Wildlife Waystation, a sanctuary in California.

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However, while she had been freed from captivity, her lodgings at the sanctuary was an enclosure with a cage top.

Wildlife Waystation has since closed, leaving the future of its rescued animals hanging in the balance.

Save the Chimps then stepped in, giving Vanilla and her crew their final forever home.

Video footage of Vanilla’s release into her new home shows her initial hesitance when jumping out of the cage into freedom – and sunshine and blue skies.

She jumps into the arms of one Dwight, and then looks up, seeing the sky for the first time, all the while hugging the alpha tightly.

Her lips move and, if chimps could talk, she would be saying “wow!”, before taking in the vast expanse of her 3 acre, grassy sanctuary under nothing but blue skies.

Vanilla and her sister Shake will live out their days as part of a large group of chimpanzees, enjoying all the fresh air, sunshine, and grass underfoot that they had never experienced.

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