AFTER rescuing them from the cages of a research lab 25 years ago, Linda Koebner has had an emotional reunion with the group of chimpanzees she saved.

    The U.S. animal behaviorist spent four years teaching the chimps she rescued how to live in the wild after she released them from the hepatitis research lab where they once lived.

    Koebner returned to the Florida sanctuary where the chimps were rehomed after two decades away and was greeted with hugs and smiles in an emotional reunion.

    PBS documentary “The Wisdom of the Wild” captured the heartwarming moment as chimps Swing and Doll embrace Koebner.

    Koebner can be seen calling out to the chimps as she takes a small boat over the water to where the chimps live.

    As she nears the chimps’ home, she calls out: “Do you remember me?”

    A chimp named Swing races over to greet Koebner, reaching out a hand from the dock, before bursting into a big smile.

    Suddenly, another chimp, named Doll, comes sprinting over.

    The two chimpanzees and Koebner embrace in a warm hug, before breaking down in tears.

    “Chimpanzees have provided us so much in this world,” Koebner says in the film.

    “So much knowledge about ourselves, about our social lives, about our dispositions, because they are so much like us as beings.

    “These chimpanzees have taught me about resilience.

    “All of these have gone through such tremendous adversity, and yet they’re forgiving, and they’re whole again.”

    Koebner remembers when the chimps were first released from their cages they had lived in for six years at the research lab.

    She said they didn’t know what to do and how to act as they struggled to embrace the outdoors.

    “They were terrified to get out of the security of their transport cage,” Koebner said in the documentary.

    “Whether it was afraid to step on the grass, they hadn’t been on anything but hard bars for years, or just the feel of the wind and the sun.

    “They just huddled in the doorways and wouldn’t come out.”

    Koebner found the nonprofit chimpanzee sanctuary Chimp Haven in Louisiana in 1995 as a refuge for lab chimps who were no longer needed for testing.

    Chimpanzees share 98.8 percent of human DNA and have been used as test subjects for drugs and vaccines.

    Experimentation on chimpanzees was only stopped in the U.S. last year when they were listed as endangered species.

    (SD-Agencies)