CAAT Newsletter: Vol. 14, No. 1, Fall 1996

Chimpanzees and Change

By Jane Goodall, Ph.D.

Humans have exploited non-human beings for hundreds of years and continue to do so in the belief that it is perfectly acceptable so long as this exploitation will, or may be, ultimately be beneficial to humans. This exploitation includes the use of animals in biomedical research and pharmaceutical testing.

Chimpanzees have been considered by a number of researchers as particularly useful in investigating the nature of, and searching for cures and/or vaccines for a variety of human diseases. For the past decade many have believed that chimpanzees represented the best non-human model for AIDS. This is because chimpanzees and humans are biologically so similar -- our two species differ in the structure of the DNA by just over one percent. Nevertheless, while the human HIV virus, injected into chimpanzees (in a variety of bodily parts and in huge doses) remains alive and replicates in chimpanzee blood, these apes have not developed the symptoms of full-blown AIDS (with the possible exception of one chimp, Jerome, at the Yerkes lab, a few months ago and the course of his disease was utterly unlike its course in humans). There is no consensus among researchers as to whether chimpanzees are useful experimental animals in AIDS research.

Chimpanzees are like us in other ways too. The similarity of their brains and central nervous systems to our own has ensured that many aspects of their behavior, emotional expression and intellectual abilities also show striking similarities to our own. They are intelligent beings with a very complex social system, capable of co-operation, empathy and true altruism. Yet these close relatives of ours are maintained, in many labs in the United States -- and other parts of the world -- in conditions which can be described at best as cramped and sterile, at worst as degrading and cruel. Thus these highly social, intellectually curious apes are typically confined singly in barren steel-barred cages measuring 5 foot by 5 foot and 7 foot high. For life.

In 1987, I visited one federally-funded lab, SEMA Inc., in Maryland, and saw pairs of infant chimpanzees, in quarantine, in cages that measured only 22 inches by 22 inches, 24 inches high. And these cages were enclosed in "isolettes" that utterly closed the prisoners off from the outside world save where air roared through the air vents. These infants were simply in quarantine after being seized from their mothers elsewhere. After 6 months they were separated, each going into his or her solitary cage in yet another isolette, to endure the experimental protocols for which they were selected.

SEMA Inc., is now known by another name -- Diagnon. The isolettes are gone. The chimps have relatively spacious accommodation, are housed in almost all protocols in pairs, and take turns exercising in a large playground. Other labs have made improvements also, partly because of new legislation, partly because directors and staff have begun to understand a little better the complex and sentient nature of chimpanzees -- and other experimental animals also. The winds of change are blowing.

Moreover, chimpanzees are no longer seen as the ideal experimental human surrogate, at least in AIDS research. The research dollars are not flowing as they once did and more and more labs are trying to downsize their chimp colonies. What will happen to chimpanzees who have outlived their usefulness to the medical community? It is surely our moral and ethical obligation to see that the chimpanzees who have been conscripted into service by the research community should be provided with some kind of retirement facility. A place where they can live in social groups, feel grass under their feet, and climb trees, or tree substitutes.

With this end in view a scientific advisory committee has been created. This group of committed individuals, the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary Task Force, will work toward designing and developing a national sanctuary for those chimpanzees who have, sometimes for scores of years, endured pitiful conditions. I am hopeful that there are those in the biomedical community who will play leading roles in this endeavor. Change typically comes slowly, but time is running out for some of these chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees, more than any other non-human animal, help us to bridge the artificial gap we have created between ourselves and the rest of the animal kingdom. An understanding of their behavior humbles us, teaches a new respect not only for the apes themselves, but also for so many of the other amazing non-human beings with whom we share this planet.

Dr. Goodall has worked with chimpanzees in the wild for many years. The Jane Goodall Institute supports wildlife research, education, and conservation.