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Animal Welfare Information General
- 1. Animal Contraception
- 2. Volunteer Vacations
- 3. Help for Problem Shelters
- 4. Premarin Exposed - brochure
- 5. Alternatives to Premarin
- 6. The ASPCA Speaks Out Against Bonsai Kitten
- 7. Animal Use in the Lab
- 8. "Out of the shadows, into the sun (Lab chimpanzees)"
- 9. The Truth About Snow Dogs
"Out of the shadows, into the sun (Lab chimpanzees)"
Marianne Radziewicz, Associate Director, ASPCA, and Tracy Basile, ASPCA
America’s “surplus” medical research chimpanzees have spent their lives in the service of human health. Isn’t it time to pay back the debt?
Chimpanzees in laboratories, whether active participants in an experiment or “retired,” live in 5-by-5-by-7-foot stainless steel cages. They receive food and water but little in the way of toys, treats, attention or affection. Laboratories are not playgrounds or refuges, and researchers are not rehabilitators.
World-renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, after visiting chimps confined alone in cages, wrote in a recent Jane Goodall Institute newsletter, “They are so grateful for a little human contact and love. They reach out to me from their cages in search of a hug or a kiss. And when I turn to leave, they scream and bang the walls.”
Sharing more than 98 percent the same DNA as humans, chimpanzees had been “recruited” to serve in the search for cures to AIDS and hepatitis. But, in the late 1980’s, something went haywire; as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was busy acquiring and breeding captive chimps for future use, the chimps themselves didn’t prove to be an effective model. Of the hundreds of chimps exposed to the HIV virus, almost none have contracted AIDS. Ready for retirement, the chimps face decades of solitary confinement.
Since most of these chimps already are infected, their use in future experiments is null. Consequently, hundreds now are being warehoused in the same labs where they once had been the subjects of research, at an estimated annual cost to taxpayers of $6 million to $8 million. Now consider the fact that chimpanzees have a life span of about 50 years. Confinement for these animals literally adds up to decades in cages and millions of taxpayers’ dollars.
Landmark legislation pending
U.S. Representative Jim Greenwood (R-PA) is reviewing draft
legislation that would bring about a more efficient research
chimpanzee retirement system. The proposal would create a system
where chimpanzees deemed no longer useful for laboratory
experimentation could live out the rest of their lives in a more
natural and humane environment.
The draft proposal currently is being reviewed by experts in Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture. More informal discussions have taken place with the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. If the legislation becomes a reality, The ASPCA would have the opportunity to appoint someone who would provide input into the care of the animals.
The overhead to run a chimpanzee sanctuary is far less than
the costs of running and staffing a mediacal research facility.
When chimps are housed in small social groups, as opposed to
being caged singly or in pairs, the cost of care is greatly
reduced. In addition, the sanctuary system calls for the creation
of a public/private matching fund which will further reduce costs
to the government in the years ahead.
Support for the proposed sanctuary received a big boost one year
ago this March, when Dr. Jane Goodall and ASPCA President Roger
Caras addressed a Congressional Friends of Animals (CFA) briefing
for members of Congress and their staffs on this important issue.
CFA, chaired by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Chris Shays
(R-CT) was host to more than 150 guests from both the House and
Senate. Goodall’s and Caras’ message of concern was
well-received throughout their “Hill Day.”
The ASPCA is proud to be a charter member of the National
Chimpanzee Research and Retirement Task Force that helped bring
the plight of these surplus chimps to the attention of Congress.
We continue to lobby for more co-sponsors to get the bill
introduced in the Senate and to provide financial support for the
research and planning required to make the sanctuary a
reality.
Life behind bars
Many of America’s older chimps were babies caught in the
African jungle and imported before federal law changed in 1975
and chimpanzees were classified as an endangered species. But
somehow classification of already-captive chimps was upgraded to
“threatened,” and this loophole enables scientists to
this day to use an endangered species for medical and laboratory
purposes.
No longer having access to wild baby chimpanzees, NIH set up a captive breeding program to assure researchers a ready supply of these primates. So successful was this program that there are currently 1,700 chimps living in medical laboratories throughout the United States. Approximately 1,000 serve as research subjects or breeders, leaving 700 who have outlived their usefulness to biomedical experimentation and are simply sitting in cages.
A decade ago The ASPCA and other humane organizations warned
that the existing management plan was poorly conceived and that
there soon would be an excess of animals. In a 1988 ASPCA
Quarterly Report, Ann Squire, then science adviser and vice
president of education, wrote: “...the management plan does
not provide for the care of chimpanzees who have outlived their
usefulness to the research community. This is a very real
problem. ...maintaining a chimp for several decades after it has
served its experimental purpose will be very expensive and this
cost has not been included in the management plan’s budget.
It seems that the inevitable outcome will be euthanasia of
‘surplus’ animals, an ironic end for our closest
relative.”
Fortunately, mass euthanasia is not in the government’s
plans for these social and sentient beings. In fact,
post-research retirement and long-term care is supported as much
by the scientific community as it is by those in animal welfare.
In 1997, The National Academy of Sciences issued a report
entitled, “Chimpanzees in Research: Strategies for their
Ethical Care, Management and Use,” which advocates a
sanctuary system very much like the one outlined in the draft
proposal.
Into the sun
The 700 chimpanzees no longer of use to the U.S. scientific
community vary in age and degree of physical and mental health.
Many suffer from severe psychological problems due to years of
isolation or insufficient socialization. People who oppose a
retirement sanctuary system argue that some of these chimps are
too impaired emotionally and physically to be successfully
resocialized. But Wally Swett, director of the San Antonio-based
sanctuary, Primarily Primates, has proven it can be done.
Take Wanda, for example, an older chimpanzee who spent 10 years in a standard laboratory cage. When she first arrived at Primarily Primates nearly two years ago, Wanda’s skin was white, and she had plucked herself nearly hairless out of boredom and confinement. She was unaccustomed to sunshine and fresh air. These symptoms and others, such as severe muscle atrophy and even a fear of clipboards, are not unusual for research chimps. “She would start to turn blue and her limbs would tremble with exhaustion after walking 20 feet,” recalls Swett. “She didn’t know how to climb or swing. And her feet were sensitive to grass and solid ground after years spent on a mesh floor.”
Today, Wanda is tan and fit and socializes with the other chimps. “When you take away the bars, a whole new way of touching and talking to each other develops,” says Swett. “It’s deeply touching to see the chimps develop their chimp etiquette, learn to trust each other and become friends. Once I proved that this was possible, it was easier to build a rapport with researchers,” explains Swett, who earlier this year acquired eight adult and two baby chimps from the Laboratory of Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), New York University’s primate center in New York City. Rehabilitation takes anywhere from a year to a year and a half, estimates Swett, who serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of The National Chimpanzee Research Retirement Task Force.
Housing retired research chimps is still an enormous expense, which may be why there are currently only two U.S. chimpanzee sanctuaries in existence. Forty-one ex-research chimps live at Primarily Primates and another 56 call The Wildlife Waystation — a sanctuary in the Angeles National Forest in California run by Martine Colette — home. The work of Swett and Colette proves that, with patience and understanding, many of the 700 retirees will be able to live successfully in social groups — playing, running, climbing trees and perhaps most importantly, living their lives in an environment that more closely resembles their natural habitat and lifestyle.
There are many more months of hard work ahead before the proposed legislation can come to a vote. We ask that our nation’s scientists, Congress and the Administration work together with Congressman Greenwood to finalize draft legislation that would provide a safe haven for these animals who have served the research community and the American public well. We ask that America’s chimps be allowed to step out of the shadows of their cages and feel the sun on their backs.
© 1998 ASPCA
Animal Watch - Spring 1998
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