No US sanctuary is staffed or equipped to care for chimpanzees like MDAKC, not one!
Over the next few years the focus turned to removing chimpanzees from research institutions and relocating them to sanctuaries in the United States. Talk about doing so seemed to intensify last June when the US Fish and Wildlife Service classified all US chimpanzees, including those in research, as endangered. Five months later Dr. Collins announced that the NIH planned to send all NIH-supported chimps to US sanctuaries. In my view, this decision actually was influenced by animal rights groups, particularly the Humane Society of the United States, who convinced tens of thousands of American citizens to submit letters to the NIH urging the agency to remove chimpanzees from research settings as quickly as possible. In a blog posted in 2013, the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States congratulated his followers for their hard work, reinforcing their effort by stating that criteria put forth by a NIH working group made it clear that “not one laboratory could be considered ethologically appropriate” for chimpanzees. This is not true. In fact, many of our chimps would fare better if they were allowed to retire in place. And several of these precious creatures have already suffered and died because the NIH would not allow them to do so.
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