Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest supports the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act. Watch this newscast from PCRM and, if you agree, Take Action. PCRM has a link at the bottom of the video to find a form you can use to contact your representatives to share your opinion.
Already written your letter? Share this post with everyone you know. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, and send via e-mail. Get the word out that GAPCSA needs more support to move forward in the current session of congress. If this bill passes, it would release all federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries. After going through invasive medical testing (which is mostly unnecessary according to the Institute of Medicine) they deserve to be retired. Just see what sanctuary life can do for chimpanzees like Negra.
Here are a few bullet points that you can include in your letter to congress:
- Chimpanzees actively used in biomedical research are routinely tested on—undergoing surgeries, infected with deadly viruses, and injected with vaccines. They are very intelligent and suffer from immense psychological distress due to lack of proper socialization, separation from their mothers when infants, and absence of mental stimulation.
- Evidence has shown that although chimpanzees are indeed genetically very similar to humans, they are a poor research model for many diseases due to basic molecular differences between the two species. For instance, chimpanzees infected with HIV do not acquire AIDS, which makes them a poor medical model for finding an HIV/AIDS vaccine for humans.
- Many chimpanzees are currently warehoused and are not actively being used in testing, but it is still costing taxpayers millions of dollars to house them. Retiring them to sanctuaries will not only provide higher quality living conditions and care, but it will save taxpayer money.
