Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimp attack

Remembering Travis and the nature of chimpanzees

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One year ago today Travis, a “pet” chimpanzee in Connecticut mauled a woman named Charla Nash and was later fatally shot by police. It was a tragedy that J.B. eloquently wrote about in this blog post: The True Nature of Chimpanzees.

Just a few days ago, a volunteer at a facility in Florida was attacked by a young chimpanzee. Best known  as Chimp Farm, the facility operated as a roadside attraction for decades and was famous for chimpanzees trained to box with humans.  Chimp Farm was shut down by the USDA in 1999. After making improvements to the housing for the animals, and putting the days of boxing chimpanzees behind them, they reopened a few years ago as Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. Though it’s difficult to parse out the facts from all of the media coverage about the attack, it does seem clear that the chimpanzee, Shawn, escaped her enclosure because those working that day, including the woman who was attacked, did not properly secure and double check the enclosure. In a statement to the press, the volunteer stressed how important it is to follow proper procedure so that escapes do not occur due to human error.

It can be frustrating that these are the stories about chimpanzees that seem to catch the attention of the major media, while there are so many positive stories out there. Chimpanzees are being migrated from a former laboratory to the Save the Chimps sanctuary islands. The Center of Great Apes is expanding  to rescue more chimpanzees. And Foxie at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is rubbing her toes together and kissing a troll doll as construction is completed on the chimps “greenhouse.”  But we can try to take advantage of the brief and sensationalized focus on chimp attacks to educate others.

The bottom line is that chimpanzees really do not belong in captivity. That is where the tragedy begins. At CSNW we do our best to provide the chimpanzees with a rich and varied life, but it’s not the life they should be living. The deserve to be swinging from the trees, traveling miles foraging for food, living in large social groups, and making nests out of branches. For so many reasons, they can’t live in the wild, so we’ll continue to provide them the best care possible. And we will always keep in mind J.B.’s words: “if we truly love them [chimpanzees], we need to treat them with the respect they deserve, and that includes respect for their complex nature….they are not meant for our world, any more than we are meant for theirs.”

Today Show spot

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Sarah, CSNW’s Executive Director, was the expert voice on a segment on the Today Show this morning about chimpanzee pet ownership. The segment spent a great deal of time with a pet owner in Montana who has two male chimpanzees around six years old. These chimpanzees were bought from the same breeder who sold Travis, the chimpanzee who attacked Charla Nash in Connecticut last month and was killed because of the attack. The young chimpanzees in Montana, Connor and Kramer, recently escaped their enclosure and bit a woman.

Their owner has admitted in a public hearing that the chimps have bitten up to 40 people. She allowed the Today Show crew to be in the living room with the chimpanzees while filming. Clearly, this is a tragedy just waiting to happen. Just like Travis’ owner, Connor and Kramer’s “mother” may indeed love “her” chimpanzees, but she is not considering the best interest of them or of her community. Connor and Kramer need to be placed in a sanctuary before it is too late.

After watching the clip, please contact the Today Show and thank them for including expert opinion and encourage them to delve into that opinion deeper for future shows. There are many chimpanzee experts out there who will explain, as Sarah did, that chimpanzees do not belong in human homes and do not belong in entertainment. Jane Goodall recently wrote an excellent article on the subject for the L.A. Times.

more on Travis and pet ownership

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Although much of the coverage on the tragedy of Travis, the chimpanzee in Connecticut who mauled Charla Nash and was subsequently shot and killed, has been frustrating to say the least, there have been a couple of good interviews included in media items very recently which I wanted to share.

This video segment includes an interview from an expert at Save the Chimps Sanctuary in Florida.

This article adds more information to the bigger story. Here’s are a few excerpts from the article:

“A chimpanzee who was shot and killed earlier this week for mauling a Connecticut woman was the offspring of a chimpanzee who made headlines eight years ago when a Festus teenager shot and killed her…..

In 2001, Travis’ 28-year-old mother, Suzy, escaped from Connie Braun Casey’s farm along Highway CC near Festus…..

April Truitt, a primate expert who runs the Kentucky-based Primate Rescue Center Inc., said chimps are too wild to be privately owned. She put more blame on the Caseys for the Connecticut incident than on Herold. She said the Caseys should not have been breeding and selling chimps.”

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You can read my reaction to the mauling in this post from Tuesday. One aspect of this story that has not been getting enough coverage is how the demand for chimpanzee “actors” helps to fuel breeding operations like Connie Casey’s. Chimpanzees should not be pets, should not be used in entertainment, and should not be used in biomedical research. There is no legitimate reason for a chimpanzee breeding operation to exist.

Jamie and Burrito were both “raised” by humans for the first years of their lives and used as “entertainers” when they were young. When they became unmanageable like any chimpanzee would, they were put into biomedical research.

Thankfully they now live in a safe, secure, and social environment at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, but others like them are not in sanctuaries, and the tragedy of Travis will occur again if laws are not put into place to make the private ownership of chimpanzees and their use in entertainment illegal.

One immediate action that you can take is to urge your federal representatives to support the Captive Primate Safety Act which would make the interstate and foreign commerce of primates illegal. Learn more from the Humane Society of the United States.

Tragedy of keeping chimpanzees as pets

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We prefer to keep things focused on the positive and love sharing the daily lives of the chimpanzees at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. But the fact is that it is a shame our sanctuary has to exist at all. The Cle Elum Seven never should have been used in research or entertainment. Chimpanzees simply do not belong in biomedical research, entertainment or in people’s homes as pets. Period. And yesterday there was evidence for some of the reasons why this is true.

On Monday afternoon in Stamford, Connecticut a 15 year old chimpanzee “pet” named Travis attacked a woman he had known for years, leaving her in critical condition. When the police arrived at the scene, they fatally shot Travis. There are now numerous stories with greater detail about this incident all over the news, including NBC.

Travis was bred in captivity to be used by humans. He reportedly appeared in commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola. His owners drove him around town. And this was not the first time the authorities of Stamford had to be called in to try to contain him.

For those of us who care for chimpanzees, it is difficult not to be angry about this incident. We know that chimpanzees should not be kept as pets – we’ve seen tragedies like this before. We know that chimpanzees should only be kept in secure enclosures. We know that chimpanzees in entertainment are usually discarded after a few years because they become too difficult to “handle.” And we know that chimpanzees are intelligent, social, amazing, and, yes, sometimes violent beings.

There should be laws in place in every state banning the keeping of chimpanzees as pets. Hollywood by choice or by being forced through legislation should never use a chimpanzee in entertainment again. Our hope is that this tragedy will create action to make these things happen, and we will do our part to help.