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Approximately 600 chimpanzees have been retired from U.S. laboratories. © Istock.com |
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After spending years—sometimes decades—of their lives in research laboratories, chimpanzees who have been retired to the federally funded chimpanzee sanctuary system will now be cared for according to recently implemented standards that will help ensure their protection.
An Act for Chimps
The standards were developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the assistance of chimpanzee experts, animal protectionists, and others, and created in accordance with the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection (CHIMP) Act.
Passed in 2000, the CHIMP Act requires the U.S. government to provide permanent sanctuary for federally owned chimpanzees when it's determined that they are no longer needed for biomedical research purposes.
A clause in the CHIMP Act mandated that standards for operating the sanctuary system be established. The standards regulate housing, veterinary care, behavioral management, population management and control, staffing, records, and guidelines for accepting chimps into the system. No other U.S.-based sanctuaries are subject to such legal standards.
What it Does
The standards include the following regulations:
- Indoor and outdoor enclosures that provide physical comfort and promote psychological and social well-being and species-typical behavior must be made available.
- Outdoor enclosures must provide nesting areas for sleeping and resting and provide refuge from the natural elements.
- Chimpanzees must have access to food, water and bedding at all times.
- Sanctuaries must employ a behavioral scientist knowledgeable in primate behavior and socialization.
- All males must be sterilized before they can be accepted into the sanctuary system.
A list of the proposed standards was released for public comment in 2005 and The HSUS, in conjunction with other animal protection groups and chimpanzee sanctuaries, submitted a number of recommendations, some of which were adopted. Examples of recommendations that were not adopted into the final language include:
- A provision that chimpanzees should always be sent to sanctuary with members of their social group, if they live in a group.
- A more detailed provision regarding geriatric chimpanzees since many of the individuals at the sanctuary are elderly.
- More specific guidelines regarding the range of temperatures in the areas where the chimps live.
- A specific requirement for enrichment activities twice daily.
Despite these exclusions, the final standards of care, implemented on November 10, are similar to those proposed in 2005 and, in general, supported by The HSUS.
Important Guidelines
"These standards emphasize the importance of chimpanzees' social and psychological well-being—something that is typically disregarded when it comes to caring for chimpanzees in laboratories," said Kathleen Conlee, director of program management for animal research issues for The HSUS.
"The standards also prohibit using chimpanzees in the sanctuary system for invasive research. The HSUS's goal, working through legislation and other efforts, is to get all chimpanzees out of laboratories and into sanctuaries."
The federally-funded chimpanzee sanctuary system is overseen by Chimp Haven, a sanctuary for chimpanzees based in Louisiana. Chimp Haven, with approximately 150 chimpanzee residents, is currently the only sanctuary in retired federally-owned chimpanzees.
Approximately 1,200 chimpanzees—some who were captured from the wild, used by the entertainment industry and kept as pets—currently live in nine biomedical research and testing laboratories around the United States. Despite extensive knowledge of their rich social and emotional lives and their ineffectiveness as models for human diseases like HIV, chimpanzees continue to be subjected to painful and invasive experiments. However, the majority of chimpanzees in laboratories are not currently used in research and are simply languishing in their cages.
The Great Ape Protection Act, currently pending in Congress, would phase out invasive research on the estimated 1,200 chimpanzees remaining in laboratories, retire to permanent sanctuary the approximately 600 of those chimpanzees who are federally-owned and stop breeding chimpanzees for use in invasive research.
The U.S. is the only country that continues the large-scale use of chimpanzees for invasive research and testing. New Zealand, United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands already forbid or severely limit experiments on great apes.
