Vegetarian Star

Emily Deschanel has written to the director of the National Institutes of Health, asking him to return chimpanzees who were living at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico before they were moved to an invasive research laboratory in Texas. The chimps were moved before the NIH agreed not to remove several dozen other chimpanzees from the sanctuary.

“I am thrilled that the National Institutes of Health has suspended plans to move the 186 chimpanzees who live at the Alamogordo Primate Facility to Southwest National Primate Research Center,” writes Deschanel.

“But I am concerned about the well-being of the 14 chimpanzees who were moved to Southwest before this decision was made. The aging chimpanzees were moved from near-retirement in New Mexico to a facility that conducts painful, invasive experiments on animals and has a long history of animal abuse.”

“All the Alamogordo chimpanzees have already been subjected to so much pain and suffering. Many of them were used in painful, invasive experiments for decades before finally being retired Alamogordo. All of them, including the 14 who are now at Southwest, deserve to live out their lives in peace.”

Deschanel’s entire letter can be read at Look To The Stars.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, almost every nation that’s used chimpanzees as test subjects has retired them to sanctuaries. Only the United States and the West African country of Gabon continue to experiment on them.

Sharing 98% of DNA with humans, chimps are estimated to have the intelligence of 5-year olds and can learn and teach sign language and do simple math problems involving fractions.

Photo: PR Photos

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