Wild chimpanzees have been on the endangered species list for decades. In the early 1900s, there were about a million of them, but current estimates are that there are only between 172,000 and 300,000 remaining around the world.
Captive chimpanzees have had a different legal status for all this time. They have been considered “threatened”, which is a less-regulated category for animals. This distinction has led to a culture of treating chimps as a commodity for research, sale, import and export, and entertainment. It also created a mistaken impression on the part of the public that chimpanzees were not in dire need of help.
For a number of years, the Jane Goodall Institute, the Humane Society, and other groups have been lobbying to change that status so that all chimpanzees would be considered endangered. As of June 16, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has officially declared that chimpanzees held in captivity in the United States will receive the same protections as wild chimps under the Endangered Species Act.
People who own chimps can keep them and chimps can still be used in the entertainment industry. But under the new ruling, for example, permits will be required for any of the 730 chimps in the custody of biomedical laboratories to be the subject of any research that might harm or harass them. Permits will be needed to sell chimpanzee blood or tissue and will only be issued for research that will directly support the conservation of chimps in the wild.
Government-owned chimps were retired from labs to sanctuaries in 2013. Coupled with the new regulations, the exploitation of chimpanzees in this country is coming to an end.
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U.S. Will Call All Chimps ‘Endangered’
Photo, posted June 8, 2013, courtesy of Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.