Threats to Chimpanzee Survival

Dear ______________,

I am writing to ask you not to use chimpanzees in your productions. Your work–now or in the future–may be tied to the use of chimpanzees. Before you do, please consider this information, which I'm presenting in a Q&A format.

How are chimpanzees trained to perform?

They are separated from their mothers as infants. This is truly tragic because in the wild, the child stays with his or her family for at least eight years. Furthermore–trainers require obedient subjects. Although it is possible to train animals using only kindness, reward and praise, in the fast-moving world of show-business, many trainers admit that they beat their performers during training. In many cases the abuse is horrendous.

What happens to chimpanzee performers?

When they are six to eight years old, they typically become more difficult to handle. Like us, chimp children learn by watching adult chimps and imitating their behaviour. Chimps that grow up apart from a chimp family do NOT grow up to behave like humans–they behave abnormally. To make them manageable, trainers may have the chimps' teeth pulled or may fit them with shock collars under their clothes.

But usually the performers are discarded. And it is becoming harder and harder to place them. Ex-performers are usually not accepted by accredited zoos. So unless they can be placed in one of the few sanctuaries for abused, surplus chimps, they will end up in roadside zoos, as medical test subjects or being quietly euthanized.

Does using chimpanzees in entertainment and advertising help people to appreciate them more?

No. The use of chimpanzees for advertising creates terribly wrong perceptions of these amazing creatures. Do you realize that the chimpanzee's smile so often seen on TV is actually a grin of fear? These trained performers suffer greatly for our amusement.

Many of these arguments also apply to the use of other exotic animals such as lions, tigers, elephants and bears. Especially considering the new abilities of animatronics and other computer imagery, there is really no justification for forcing these amazing creatures to suffer for our amusement or gain. I hope you'll join the growing number of businesses that refuse to sanction or participate in this gross misuse of creatures that are vulnerable to our exploitation precisely because they are so like us.

Sincerely,

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE