New Home for Retired Lab Chimps

Posted by Kim | Mar 9, 2013 | Nature | 3 |

Here’s your “Feel Good, Cry Anyway” post for today:

You’re welcome.

Writer, researcher, astonishment-seeker. Writing on science, nature & other sources of wonder.

3 Comments

Megan on March 9, 2013 at 1:43 pm

Whew. Powerful. So powerful. And maybe a future trend is that a chimp doesn’t have to wait so many years to “retire” here. Maybe their “service to humankind” could be shorter.
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Bill Swan on March 10, 2013 at 10:06 pm

Thanks, Kim.
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Kim on March 11, 2013 at 6:42 am

Meg, slowly their service to human-kind is being eradicated. There are very few things we need chimps for. These are all government chimps. From the original video:

Over 100 government-owned chimpanzees will start a new life when they are retired at Chimp Haven sanctuary in Keithville, La., over the next 12 to 15 months.

The issue now is funding. It’s not like chimps who worked for the government have a retirement plan in place. (Can you imagine trying to get that bill passed?). Someone has to pay for lifetime care for these animals and meanwhile the sanctuaries are stuck fundraising for them.

From a Jan 2013 article:

One question is how NIH will pay for the costs of chimp retirement. In 2000, Congress capped how much the agency can spend on construction and care at federal chimp sanctuaries at $30 million, a limit NIH will reach this summer. “It is a concern and something we would have to have addressed at the congressional level,” Anderson said.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/01/nih-urged-to-retire-most-researc.html
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