NIH News:National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced Thursday that none of the 44 government owned chimpanzees at the Alamogordo Primate Research Facility in New Mexico are considered “eligible” for retirement.
Meaning that all of these animals are destined to live out the remainder of their lives in a laboratory. This decision is fundamentally inconsistent with agency’s duties under the CHIMP Act and they have an obligation to these animals to ensure that they get the necessary care and attention they deserve at the federal sanctuary, Chimp Haven.
Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States said:
“It has been almost five years since NIH announced the agency would no longer fund invasive chimpanzee research and would retire all federally-owned and -supported chimpanzees to sanctuary. Today the agency betrayed that commitment. These animals are being held in laboratories through the use of taxpayer funds and, while the agency is claiming that none of the chimpanzees are healthy enough to be transferred, the ‘independent’ panel that made that determination did not include a primate behaviorist, ethicist or a veterinarian with sanctuary experience. Instead, the panel was made up of three of NIH’s own veterinarians.”
Sara Amundson, president of Humane Society Legislative Fund said:
“While the agency is claiming that they cannot transfer any of remaining chimps due to their age or health status – we remain concerned that because the laboratories that house these chimpanzees have a financial interest in continuing to house them, that the agency is actually placing these financial interests over the interests of the chimpanzees in question.
“NIH has an obligation under the CHIMP Act to send chimpanzees to Chimp Haven, and today’s action is simply insufficient. We will continue to push the agency to retire all eligible chimpanzees so that they can live out the remainder of their lives in sanctuary.”
