• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.

  • Our Family
    • The Chimpanzees
    • The Cattle
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • Visiting the Sanctuary
    • Philosophy
      • FAQs
      • Mission, Vision & Goals
      • Privacy Policy
    • The Humans
      • Staff
      • Board of Directors
      • Founder
    • Annual Reports
    • The Future of CSNW
    • CSNW In The News
  • You can help
    • Donate
      • Donate Online Now
      • Be a Chimpanzee Pal
      • Sponsor-a-Day
      • Transfer Stock
      • Crypto Donations and NFTs
      • Be a Produce Patron
      • Be a Bovine Buddy
      • Give from your IRA
      • Personalized Stones
      • Bring Them Home Campaign
    • Leave A Legacy
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Volunteer
    • See Our Wish List
    • Events
  • Resources
    • About Chimpanzees
    • Enrichment Database
    • Advocacy
      • Apes in Entertainment
        • Trainers
        • Role of the AHA
        • Greeting Cards
      • Chimpanzees as Pets
      • Roadside Zoos
      • Chimpanzees in Biomedical Research
      • Conservation
        • African Apes
        • Orangutans
  • Shop
    • Merchandise Store
    • Bookstore
  • Contact
  • Donate

charles siebert

NY Times op-ed by Charles Siebert

March 6, 2009 by Diana

One year ago, before the Cle Elum Seven arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, I posted a blog entry with a link to a radio interview with Charles Siebert on This American Life.

Today, Siebert had an op-ed printed in the New York Times entitled Something Wild. Here is an excerpt:

There is something about chimpanzees — their tantalizing closeness to us in both appearance and genetic detail — that has always driven human beings to behavioral extremes, actions that reflect a deep discomfort with our own animality, and invariably turn out bad for both us and them.

Siebert uses specific examples of chimpanzee individuals to illustrate humans’ uncomfortable relationship with our closest evolutionary relatives, and our stubborn desire to make them fit into our concepts of of who they are, which manifest not from observing and appreciating chimpanzees as a distinct species,  but from our attempts to make them our human-like playthings as “pets” and “entertainers” or human surrogates in biomedical research.

Siebert explains what I have observed of captive chimpanzees – they live in a world of lost identity. They did not have the opportunity to grow up within a chimpanzee culture, but they cannot fit into our human culture either, no matter how hard we try to force them to.

Sanctuaries like Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest try to make the best out of the inherently unjust situation of captivity. We allow the chimpanzees to be who they are, which is sometimes a strange mix of learned “human” behaviors and a renewed expression of their instinctual chimpanzee selves. Our deepest hope is that we can provide for those in our care while working to ensure that one day sanctuaries like ours will not be necessary because chimpanzees will no longer be used for human purposes.

Filed Under: News, Sanctuary Tagged With: animal protection, animal rescue, animal rights, Animal Welfare, charles siebert, chimp mauling, chimp rescue, chimp sanctuary, chimpanzee, chimpanzee retierement, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimpanzees, new york times, new york times op-ed, this american life, travis

Chimpanzee “Retirement” on This American Life

March 5, 2008 by Diana

If you have eleven minutes right now, listen to the last segment of Ira Glass’ This American Life episode #350 here. This segment, called Almost Human Resources, is with Charles Siebert, a reporter who is a contributing writer for the New York Times. The subject of the interview is “retirement homes” for chimpanzees! Siebert does a really good job of articulating some of the problems of using chimpanzees for human purposes, including their use in the entertainment industry. It is so great to hear this issue within a fairly mainstream setting (hopefully that’s not an insult to the program) with a remarkable amount of depth considering the rather light-hearted beginning to the topic. Siebert is apparently finishing up a book he has written about chimpanzees in retirement called “Humanzee.”

Towards the end of the interview, Ira asks Siebert what he thinks about this so-called “retirement” for chimpanzees once used in research and entertainment and Siebert replies, “I’ve come to feel that it’s the best we can do for them given the circumstances, but, in the best of worlds, it shouldn’t have happened. They shouldn’t have been kidnapped from their lives for these purposes…”

I couldn’t have said it better.

 Diana

Filed Under: Sanctuary Tagged With: charles siebert, chimpanzee retirement, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, humanzee, ira glass, new york times, this american life

Primary Sidebar

Archives

Calendar of Blog Posts

January 2023
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Dec    

Categories

SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Footer

PO Box 952
Cle Elum, WA 98922
[email protected]
509-699-0728
501c3 registered charity
EIN: 68-0552915

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest Nonprofit Overview and Reviews on GreatNonprofits
Official DDAF Grantee

Menu

  • The Chimpanzees
  • Blog
  • About Us
  • You can help
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Donate

Proud Member of

Connect With Us

Search

Copyright © 2022 Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. All Rights Reserved. Site by Vegan Web Design