April 20, 2012 - Movie Premiere Opening and Safari Base Camp
Photos from the premiere
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April 2012 - Spring Fest
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March 1, 2012
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October 2011
Like many of our supporters, Chimps Inc. was shocked to learn of the tragic situation in Zanesville, OH. Although no chimpanzees were involved, we were still horrified and deeply saddened by this turn of events. An individual who owned a multitude of exotic animals, including monkeys, bears, tigers, and lions, released the animals from their enclosures, and then committed suicide. Law enforcement officers had little choice but to shoot most of the animals.Unfortunately, sanctuaries that provide high quality, lifetime care to rescued animals are sometimes lumped into the same category as exotic animal collectors, breeders, and pet owners. Exotic animal collectors or breeders may even refer to themselves as a sanctuary or preserve, when they share little in common with a true sanctuary. How can the public tell the difference? There are, fortunately, several distinctions. A sanctuary such as Chimps Inc. never buys, sells, rents, exhibits, or deliberately breeds animals. Sanctuaries provide safe, secure housing, and provide care that well exceeds minimum animal welfare standards. Sanctuaries welcome oversight-including a board of directors, as well as regular state and federal inspections-to ensure compliance with the law. Safety is paramount, and emergency plans are in place. For example, at Chimps Inc., there are multiple locks on each chimpanzee door, and multiple staff members check each and every lock every single day. Chimps Inc. also has protocols that must be followed in the unlikely event of an escape, maintains recapture equipment kits, conducts drills, and has a cooperative relationship with local law enforcement.
In order to further help define the standards that distinguish sanctuaries from collectors, roadside zoos, and exotic animal trainers, a group of chimpanzee sanctuaries, including Chimps Inc., founded the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA). Working cooperatively with each other and animal welfare organizations, NAPSA will establish criteria for quality primate care and assist the public in easily identifying those organizations that truly provide sanctuary.
The horrible case in Ohio further illustrates why non-domesticated animals such as big cats, monkeys, chimps, bears and other wildlife do not make good pets. The breeding and sale of these magnificent beings should be prohibited by law, and no one should be permitted to keep them as pets. We hope that stronger regulations will be put into place in Ohio and elsewhere as a result of this situation, but it is tragic that the cats, bears, and monkeys had to pay for human failings with their lives.
August 2011 - from Science/AAAS
U.S. Agency to Consider, Again, If Captive Chimpanzees Deserve Endangered Status - Much of the petition focuses on the "sanctioned exploitation" of captive chimpanzees by the entertainment industry, as well as on the existing U.S. laws and regulations that allow people to keep the primates as pets. But these categories only account for about 260 animals; nearly half the captive chimp population consists of animals in biomedical research laboratories, which the petition claims are "often inhumanely treated." The petition does not address current U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations that monitor these laboratories, but insists that an uplisting by FWS will improve their lot. "It is clear that exploitation of this species for biomedical purposes has not positively benefitted chimpanzees in captivity or in the wild; in addition to resulting in mistreatment of individual chimpanzees, such use actively undermines chimpanzee conservation," the petition states.The last time FWS examined this issue, chimpanzees were a cornerstone of AIDS vaccine research and NIH had an active breeding program. No less than the NIH director then, James Wyngaarden, wrote to the agency to protest the reclassification, arguing that it could "significantly compromise our current ability to make selective use of chimpanzees in research to fight human disease." A chimpanzee researcher at what is now called Yerkes National Primate Research Center at the time went further in his warnings. "When the pandemic of AIDS becomes a truly frightening thing, humans will not stand by and watch their own species reduced while they protect animals that could help test vaccines and drugs," said Frederick King said in a 1998 issue of Science. Researchers further worried that endangered status for captive chimps could create massive red tape for their studies.
Today, no one conducts AIDS vaccine experiments with chimpanzees, and the breeding program was stopped more than 15 years ago. Legislation now before Congress, the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, which HSUS and several other petitioners have helped craft, calls for an end to all invasive biomedical research with chimpanzees. An Institute of Medicine committee, at NIH's behest, also is currently studying the use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral research.
Summer 2011 - from Center For Great Apes E-news
New Movie About Apes Does Not Exploit Apes! - This summer's Rise of the Planet of the Apes made leaps towards entertaining its viewers without using live chimpanzees in the making of the film. The apes in the movie appeared by an innovation called computer-generated imagery, or CGI. Filmmaker Rupert Wyatt did not want to use real chimpanzees in the movie. As noted in an online interview "Wyatt pointed out that a big theme of this movie is humanity's mistreatment and abuse of captive apes - as far as he's concerned, apes are the heroes of this film, and humans are the villains - and he said he couldn't imagine a worse way of undercutting that message than by using real apes in the movie's production."
August 31, 2011 - from www.primaterescue.org
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Initiates Review of the Chimpanzee's Status - At long last, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) today announced that it will initiate a status review to determine whether reclassifying all captive chimpanzees from threatened to endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is warranted.August 2011
Stop Using Chimps as Guinea Pigs - By ROSCOE G. BARTLETTWashington
BEFORE I was elected to Congress, I was a physiologist at the Navy's School of Aviation Medicine. For our successful missions to transport men to the moon and return them safely to Earth, I invented a series of respiratory support devices, which we tested on primates, including Baker, a squirrel monkey. Before humans were rocketed into space, Baker was the first primate to survive a trip into space and back; Able, her counterpart on the flight, died from an allergic reaction to an anesthetic during a procedure shortly after the landing.
At the time, I believed such research was worth the pain inflicted on the animals. But in the years since, our understanding of its effect on primates, as well as alternatives to it, have made great strides, to the point where I no longer believe such experiments make sense - scientifically, financially or ethically. That's why I have introduced bipartisan legislation to phase out invasive research on great apes in the United States. Today is the start of a two-day public hearing convened by the Institute of Medicine, which is examining whether there is still a need for invasive chimpanzee research. Meanwhile, nine countries, as well as the European Union, already forbid or restrict invasive research on great apes. Americans have to decide if the benefits to humans of research using chimpanzees outweigh the ethical, financial and scientific costs. The evidence is mounting that they do not. For one thing, many new techniques are cheaper, faster and more effective, including computer modeling and the testing of very small doses on human volunteers. In vitro methods now grow human cells and tissues for human biomedical studies, bypassing the need for whole animals.
Such advances have led to a drop in primate research. Many federally owned chimpanzees were bred to support AIDS research, but later proved inferior to more modern technologies. As a result, most of the 500 federally owned chimpanzees are idling in warehouses. Ending chimpanzee research and retiring the animals to sanctuaries would save taxpayers about $30 million a year.
We also know more about the consequences of invasive research on the animals themselves. Biomedical procedures that are simple when performed on humans often require traumatizing restraint of chimpanzees to protect human researchers from injury, as chimpanzees are five times stronger than humans. For instance, acquiring a blood sample from a chimp can require a "knockdown," or shooting it with a tranquilizer gun. If you've seen video of a knockdown, you know it is clearly frightening and stressful. Moreover, even the mere confinement in laboratory cages deprives chimpanzees of basic physical, social and emotional sustenance. Numerous peer-reviewed studies of chimpanzees in sanctuaries who had previously been confined in laboratories have documented behavioral symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Chronic and traumatic stress harms chimpanzees' health and compromises the results of experiments conducted on them.
There is no question that chimpanzees experience pain, stress and social isolation in ways strikingly similar to the way humans do. James Marsh's recent documentary, "Project Nim," chronicles the 27-year life of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a controversial research project that involved raising him as though he were a human. Nim was taught sign language - and he used those signs to tell his human interlocutors that he was traumatized by his living conditions.
Nim isn't alone. In his book "Next of Kin," Dr. Roger S. Fouts recounted his reunion with a chimp named Booee. After 13 years of separation, and after Booee was deliberately infected with hepatitis C, Booee recognized, signed and played with Dr. Fouts, to whom he had given the signed nickname of "Rodg." Other visitors reported that Booee used the American Sign Language gesture for "keys," indicating that he wanted to get out of his cage.
Stories like these, as well as my understanding of the state of biomedical research, persuaded me to sponsor the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington. The bill would phase out invasive research on great apes and retire the 500 federally owned chimpanzees from laboratories to sanctuaries.
Continuing innovations in alternatives to the use of invasive research on great apes is the civilized way forward in the 21st century. Past civilizations were measured by how they treated their elderly and disabled. I believe that we will be measured, in part, by how we treat animals, particularly great apes. Americans can no longer justify confining these magnificent and innocent animals to traumatic invasive research and life imprisonment.
Roscoe G. Bartlett is a Republican representative from Maryland.
April 2011
- Chimps Inc Has an Active Garden - Plants of the Apes -
Central Oregon Master GardenersTM have certainly been busy at Chimps Inc., a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary, in Tumalo. The Plants of the Apes team consists of Betty Faller & Sandra Weible as co-chairs along with Ellen Glenn, Stephanie Black, Connie Braffford, Yvonne Johnson and Bee Paulson. This private sanctuary provides a place of refuge for chimpanzees that have come from roadside zoos, the entertainment industry and the private pet trade. Also, included in the sanctuary is a Siberian Lynx named Alfonz.
Kimie's Greenhouse, named in memory of one of their recently departed chimps, has been reconditioned after a few years of low use. Our first project was spent cleaning and organizing the 20' by 40' greenhouse. Then, with the direction of expert Master Gardeners, Chimps Inc. staff and volunteers activated the misters for watering several flats of seedlings at once. David Faller & Vern Weible installed a heated bench along with thermostats in another part of the greenhouse so the seeds could have the correct germination temperature. We then started our compost pit a few feet away from the greenhouse.
Outside, in the newly named Plants of the Apes Garden (named by a COMGA member), we are now direct sowing potatoes, peas, carrots and many other chimp favorites. Who knew chimps like edible flowers! The carefully tended starts of cabbage, broccoli, kale, tomatoes and others will be transplanted into the garden when the ground warms up. We continue to plant both in the greenhouse and in the outdoor spaces so the chimps will have a wide variety of fresh food. We are also germinating stevia for a diabetic chimp to enjoy. Lest not forget Alfonz with our many pots of catnip.
With two outdoor gardens, there will soon be food growing within viewing range of the chimps. They like to select their own snacks by pointing to the Chimps Inc. caregivers who can custom pick just the right munchies this summer. This is on-going educational project for all of us, including the staff at Chimps Inc.
The volunteer hours have been filled with education and fun for all - the Master Gardeners, the Chimps Inc volunteers, caregivers and the chimpanzees. Plants of the Apes Gardens are off to a great start for the summer of 2011. We will keep you updated on our progress! We encourage you to visit the Chimps Inc. website to learn more about this amazing local sanctuary. www.chimps-inc.org.
April 24, 2011 - from McClatchy
- As science turns from chimp research, U.S. wants to restart - About 180 chimpanzees at a federal primate facility in the New Mexico desert are at the center of an impassioned debate between the National Institutes of Health and the animal-rights community. The NIH wants to move the chimps away from Alamogordo, where they'll be allowed to be put back into research. Animal-rights activists want them retired to a grassy sanctuary. The use of chimps in research has been a hot-button issue for years.
- Some chimps never recover from stresses of research - The debate about medical testing on chimpanzees often revolves around the physical impact on the chimps - week after week of liver biopsies or year after year of being infected with HIV or hepatitis. But an examination by McClatchy of the chimp-research world found that, in addition to a physical toll, the testing life can have a significant impact on a chimp's mental state.
- Some lab chimps left with poor health, shortened lives - They've been out of the lab for years, but for many chimpanzees at a federal primate facility in New Mexico, the effects of long-ago medical experimentation can linger till they die. In pursuit of cures for humans, some chimpanzees' lives are cut short.
February 7, 2011 - from Peta.org
What Happens to CareerBuilder's Ape 'Actors'? - Did you ever wonder what happens to the chimpanzees CareerBuilder uses in its Super Bowl ads when the company is done exploiting them?The lucky ones end up at the Center for Great Apes sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida, which took in Bella, Ellie, Kodua, and Mowgli, all veterans of CareerBuilder's 2005 Super Bowl ad campaign.
