Retirement Due for Chimps in Research

Subjected to experiments that are often painful and distressful. Confined for decades in laboratory cages.

But not forgotten by us.

© The HSUS
Kitty, one of three chimpanzees formerly used in research
who now live at Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch.

Such is the circumstance for about 1,300 of our closest living relatives—chimpanzees who are imprisoned in nine laboratories across the country.

Today, many researchers admit that chimpanzees are an ineffective research model for human diseases such as HIV. But chimps continue to be used in invasive experiments and warehoused in sterile environments that simply do not meet their complex needs—at a great moral cost to our nation and a substantial cost to American taxpayers.

Many of these chimps were captured from the wild as babies and, throughout their life in the lab, have borne offspring who became research subjects. Others were trained for use in entertainment or kept as pets, only to meet an even more grim fate. Long-lived, some of these hapless creatures have been held in labs for more than 50 years.

At The Humane Society of the United States, we’re determined to rescue them from the lonely privations of the laboratory, and to retire those chimps who are currently in labs to appropriate sanctuaries. I invite you to watch a short video message I’ve prepared about why it is so critical we provide a better life for these chimpanzees.

In the video you’ll see Kitty, Lulu and Midge—three chimps who were formerly used in research but are now thriving at The Fund for Animals' Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch. Each one of them came to Black Beauty Ranch with a heart-wrenching story. And each has a distinctive personality (take our short “chimpanality” quiz to see which chimp is most like you).

Rescued chimps like Kitty, Lulu and Midge are the lucky ones. I hope you’ll consider supporting our Chimps Deserve Better campaign. Your gift will help provide these emotionally complex, sensitive and endangered creatures with a better life, and also support our other work to stop animal cruelty. And please visit humanesociety.org/chimps to see many more ways to help these chimpanzees—to rescue them from the pitiable circumstances they now endure.