Captive Chimpanzees Find Sanctuary

January 17, 2000

It took a great collective effort to rescue a group of chimpanzees from the laboratories of The Coulston Foundation. These chimpanzees, who were part of the US space program, were awarded to Coulston in August 1998 by the US Air Force and the Department of Defense as a result of a Congressional decree. And so, on October 28, 1999, after a year-long lawsuit against the US Air Force, The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care (CCCC) was awarded 21 of the chimpanzees who will be retired to a 150-acre sanctuary in South Florida. The chimpanzees are expected to move to their new homes sometime this spring or summer, as soon as the compound can be prepared to accommodate them. Even though it was the will of many people to retire the "Space Chimps" ? including such well known supporters as Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Roger Fouts ? it was the efforts of CCCC founder and director Dr. Carol Noon that made it happen. "This has been an agonizing year, but today makes it all worthwhile,'' Dr. Noon said after the agreement was announced.

The agreement follows a year-long lawsuit brought against the U.S. Air Force by The Center. The Center filed its case after the Air Force awarded 111 of its 141 chimpanzees to The Coulston Foundation in August 1998. The chimps were the subject of a controversial Congressionally authorized divestiture. The Center, which has world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall on its board of directors, submitted a proposal to the Air Force to retire the chimps to a sanctuary, but the bid was rejected. The remaining 30 chimps were sent to Primarily Primates in San Antonio, TX, which is a sanctuary for chimpanzees and other "domesticated" wildlife unable to be returned to the wild.

Chimpanzees have been used as human surrogates in biomedical experiments for most of the 20th century. The reason was that chimpanzees are most similar to humans of all other animal species ? they share about 98.5 percent of humans' DNA ? and it was "logically" felt that the very dangerous and often lethal tests for the advancement of human medicine would be best served by using chimpanzees. This gave rise to the development of a large number of biomedical research laboratories, such as The Coulston Foundation, which have heavily relied upon such research on chimpanzees and the billions of dollars they have received in funding for such research.

The chimpanzees awarded to The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care are direct descendants of those who paved the way for human space travel. The most famous of these descendants is Ham, the first chimp in space, who preceded Alan Shepard's inaugural manned space slight. CCCC's chimpanzees range in age from 6 to 40 years old. The oldest is Hanzie who was born in Africa right around the time Jane Goodall began her study of chimpanzees. The youngest is Lil' Mini whose mother, Minnie, died last year. Minnie was used in the original Project Mercury tests including zero gravity testing and Mercury 'couch' training - the chair Ham and Enos (the second chimpanzee in space) were strapped into during their space flights. Enos' flight was a full dress rehearsal for the space flight that would carry Lt. Colonel John Glenn into orbit.

To learn more about captive chimpanzees and related information, visit Save the Chimps at http://www.savethechimps.org.

Did you know...?

Chimpanzees do not smile. When they appear to be smiling, such as Ham appeared to be doing when he returned to Earth from him space flight on January 21, 1961, they are most likely frightened. In a recent Ecology interview with Dr. Jane Goodall, she said, "In all of my years of observing chimpanzees in the wild, I have never seen one of them 'smile'. When they grin the way Ham was grinning as he sat in his space capsule, they are truly frightened." The Air Force interpreted Ham's smile as an extreme state of happiness and thus labeled the test flight a total success. It was reported that Ham was so frightened by the space flight, he refused to go back into the Mercury capsule that took him into space during a press conference following the historic event.