As U.S. laboratories phase out the use
of chimps, former research subjects fill specially designed
facilities
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014
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| Green Photo Agency - Archive PHOTOGRAPH BY IACONIANNI FABIO |
KEITHVILLE, Louisiana—It's a few
minutes before 8 a.m. atChimp Haven, a sanctuary for retired research
chimpanzees, and the air fills with their excited hoots and cries.
Chimps in an open-air forested enclosure have spotted veterinarian
Raven Jackson carrying a caddy packed with their morning's juice
treats and frozen bananas. A half-dozen dark-haired chimpanzees crowd
the wire metal gate and wait for her to dispense the goodies.
"Hello, Sara Soda," Jackson
says to one very large and well-padded female, who opens her mouth
wide to swig her juice. "And Rita, you're next," the vet
says to the chimpanzee sidled tight against Sara.
Each bottle is filled with a mix of
juice and individually tailored vitamins and medicines for the
ailments these older chimps suffer, including arthritis and heart
disease.
There are youngsters, too, in the
lineup. Two-year-old Natalie clings to her mother, Ginger, while
seven-year-old Tracy, an orphan, pants excitedly until she's received
her juice, then turns and somersaults across the lawn.
These young chimps were born in the
sanctuary, but unexpectedly, since the male chimps have all had
vasectomies. That's why, for the past two years, the females' frozen
bananas have been laced with birth control. Chimp Haven didn't intend
to breed more chimps in captivity. Instead, these are meant to be
among the last of the chimpanzees owned by the U.S. government.
And unlike their mothers, these
youngsters will not be the subjects of laboratory experiments.
For nearly a hundred years, chimpanzees
have been used in U.S. laboratories to test new vaccines and medical
procedures. Sometimes housed in small, cement cages, many lived most
of their lives in isolation. But in recent years, the movement to end
invasive research on these animals, humans' closest genetic
relatives, has gained force.
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This chimpanzee is captive at a primate
center
in Gabon that does HIV and Ebola testing on chimps.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LYNN JOHNSON, NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
|
Now, special sanctuaries, designed
specifically for chimpanzees, are opening their doors to these great
apes. They're here to serve the chimpanzees who served humankind as
subjects of government-funded biomedical research.
And once at a place like Chimp Haven,
they can even learn to be chimps again. Chimps socialize with each
other here, some for the first time, and are showing that the
behaviors of wild chimps can be learned even after years in the
laboratory.
"We don't know all the details of
their personal histories," says Amy Fultz, a behavioral
specialist and co-founder of Chimp Haven. "And we don't know all
that they endured. But for many of them it was a harsh life, and when
they first came here, their attitude was 'people suck.' That they
trust us as much as they do now is phenomenal to me. They are
incredibly forgiving."
Retirements "Happening Really
Fast"
President Bill Clinton paved the way
for sanctuaries like Chimp Haven 14 years ago when he signed
the CHIMP Act, which recognized that the government had a
surplus of chimpanzees. Some were elderly, in their late 40s and 50s.
The act established a National
Chimpanzee Sanctuary System to which government-owned
chimpanzees used in federally funded research programs could retire.
At the time, there were about 600
government-owned chimpanzees in research facilities scattered across
the country, where they were used primarily for HIV, monoclonal
antibody, and hepatitis studies. Another 1,000 chimps were in
privately owned research facilities.
Today, about 450 of the government
chimps survive, with half living in sanctuaries such as Chimp Haven.
Most of the others are waiting to be moved.
Many of these apes had been born in
captivity after the National Institutes of Health increased
chimpanzee breeding for HIV research in the 1980s; a moratorium was
placed on this program in 1995, when scientists discovered that while
chimps can be infected with HIV, they do not develop the full-blown
symptoms of AIDS, making them a poor model to study the disease. The
NIH ended its breeding program entirely in 2012.
Still, to people working to rescue the
research chimpanzees, like Sarah Baeckler Davis, the executive
director of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance, it
seemed unlikely in 2000 that most of the NIH's research chimpanzees
would now be retired.
"I thought it would take decades,"
Baeckler Davis said in a telephone interview from her office in
Portland, Oregon. "But it's happening really fast now. It's
definitely a trend, and the handwriting is on the wall for anyone
using chimpanzees in research."
Public sentiment has also turned
against using chimpanzees, especially in invasive studies, after
decades of studies on the apes revealed their intelligent, emotional
natures to be similar to our own.
The efforts to retire the chimpanzees
picked up in 2011, when the NIH asked a 12-member committee of
scientists from various disciplines to evaluate current and past
research projects that used the apes. The committee's report,
issued by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, concluded that while
chimpanzee research has had medical value, most current projects are
not necessary.
Further, the Institute of Medicine
report recommended that any future research programs be reviewed to
determine if they are a "necessary and appropriate" use of
the species—such as ongoing research into monoclonal antibody
therapies (now studied as a potential cancer treatment), genetic
comparisons, behavioral and cognitive studies, and neuroimaging.
 |
In 1956, a "space monkey,"
outfitted in pressurized helmet
and windblast suit,
was placed in a
high-altitude chamber
as part of research into creating protective
clothing for pilots.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN, CORBIS
|
Although chimpanzees might be required
for investigating new diseases in the future, "the long-term
goal is not to use chimpanzees at all," says James Anderson, a
director at NIH, who oversees its chimpanzees and their retirement
program.
"It doesn't mean the NIH is
eliminating chimpanzee research altogether," stresses Jen
Feuerstein, the director of Save the Chimps, a sanctuary in
Florida, which also has taken in many of the retirees, including 266
that were privately owned by the Coulston Foundation, a research
facility notorious for numerous animal welfare violations. "But
the bar for these studies has been set much higher."
Just Being a Chimpanzee
Chimp Haven, which is the only
sanctuary authorized to care for NIH chimpanzees harboring infectious
diseases, began welcoming the retirees to its 200 acres of pine woods
in 2005, and now houses 208.
Of these, 110 arrived just this spring.
Some had never seen the sky, or set foot on anything other than
concrete; a few had been socially isolated for most of their lives.
Many were infected with HIV or
hepatitis viruses, and had endured multiple liver biopsies. Those
females who had been in the NIH's breeding program (including the
young Tracy's mother) had all of their babies taken from their arms.
"We don't know what they remember
about their past lives," says Chimp Haven's Fultz. "But
here, they all live in social groups; they have friends, and they get
to do basically what they want."
And most of what they want is just to
be chimpanzees—palling around with a friend, or putting on loud,
energetic displays, or letting a youngster hitch a ride on their
backs. On Chimp Haven's grounds, the apes live in a variety of cages
and enclosures, including concrete-walled play yards, with climbing
platforms, ropes, and swings.
There are also two large forested
habitats that are bounded by a moat and fences, and it's in these
wooded areas that Fultz has witnessed what she once would have
considered most unlikely: former captive chimpanzees climbing to the
tops of the pines, or hunting raccoons, or making stick tools to
forage for ants, just as apes do in the wild in Africa. Chimps who
had been raised in captivity weren't thought to know how to do any of
these things; they never had the chance to learn.
"It's our oldest chimpanzees, like
Rita, who know how to do all these things," Fultz said.
Rita had been captured in Africa when
she was a youngster; her mother and other family members were most
likely killed when she was seized. Ultimately, she ended up as one of
the U.S. Air Force's breeding chimpanzees for its space program.
 |
A chimpanzee uses a typewriter-like
device
to punch out sentences using symbols for words in a 1973
experiment at Emory University in Atlanta.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN, CORBIS
|
Some of her offspring may have served
in space; no one knows. "But, no, she would not have raised any
of her kids," Fultz said.
Rita was also one of the first
chimpanzees to arrive at Chimp Haven in 2005. Not long after she had
settled in, Fultz spotted her halfway up a pine tree.
"It made such an impression on
me," Fultz said. "None of our chimps that were born in
captivity knew how to climb trees, or how to fish for ants; they've
learned by watching Rita. But she remembered how to do both because
she'd done them in Africa with her mother. She hadn't forgotten."
Retirement for Almost All
All but 50 of the NIH-funded
chimpanzees are now scheduled for retirement. The institutes are
retaining those last few for projects that meet the new standards.
There are about 900 other privately owned chimpanzees that are still
subjected to medical testing, or used in entertainment, or kept as
pets.
It's harder to track what's happening
to the privately owned chimps, but the shift away from using these
animals in research means that at least some will end up in
sanctuaries.
Chimps from all kinds of facilities,
private or government, would be readily welcomed at a sanctuary, says
Baeckler Davis of the Sanctuary Alliance, which has seven approved
retirement centers, including Chimp Haven and Save the Chimps, for
the apes.
Here they all live in social groups;
they have friends, and they get to do basically what they want.
Yet even these chimps may one day be
able to lead a life as free as Rita's: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service will soon be announcing its decision on a proposal that
all chimpanzees—even those privately owned and in captivity—be
listed as endangered.
"We don't know what the effect of
this will be," says Baeckler Davis. "But people couldn't do
things to chimpanzees that are prohibited under the Endangered
Species Act."
If the ruling is enacted, public and
privately financed researchers will likely be required to obtain
permits for any experiments that harm chimpanzees, and will have to
show that their experiments contribute to the survival of chimpanzees
in the wild.
Whether chimps are listed as endangered
or not, more and more of them can look forward to a home in a
sanctuary alongside other chimpanzees, Baeckler Davis says, with
plenty of good food, things to do, and choices to make. And above
all, the chance at long last to simply be a chimpanzee.
(source: NAT.GEO)
