Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 541

498

| Sanctuaries

Europe and Asia chimpanzees have been
mistreated, often shockingly, in zoos, circuses and other forms of entertainment,
and in medical research laboratories.
Many of these were taken from Africa,
snatched from the dead bodies of their
mothers as infants. Others were born in
captivity. We owe it to these unfortunate
individuals to provide them with safe havens where they can live out their lives
in relative freedom once they have been
rescued.
In the UK, Jim Cronin founded the
Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre, which
he runs with his wife, Alison. Originally
this center was built to provide a home
for the infant chimpanzees smuggled into
Spain from West Africa and used as photographers’ props in tourist resorts. Jim
worked with a British couple who lived in
Spain, the Templars, and with the police,
to stop the illegal trafficking, and also with
tourist agencies, persuading them to warn
visitors of the cruel practice. Jim has now
rescued chimpanzees and other primates
from many parts of the world. In America,
Wally Swett began taking in abused animals, mostly primates, discarded by the pet
and entertainment industries. His Primarily
Primates is situated in San Antonio,
and now provides sanctuary for several

groups of chimpanzees. Patti Regan, at
the Center for Orangutan and Chimpanzee
Conservation, Vachula, Florida, and April
Truit, at the Primate Rescue Center,
Inc., Nicholasville, Kentucky, have both
built small sanctuaries for ex-pet and exentertainment chimpanzees.
A very difficult challenge is to create sanctuaries for chimpanzees who
have been used and abused in medical
research laboratories. These individuals are typically full grown, and often
they have been housed alone for most
of their lives, so that it can take years to

re-socialize some of them. The very first
rescue of a group of ex-lab chimps, released onto a manmade island at Lion
Country Safaris in Florida, is described by
Linda Koebner in her moving book From
Cage to Freedom. They are still there.
Years later, the Chimpanzee Health
Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act or CHIMP Act, H.R. 3514,
sponsored by U.S. Representative James
Greenwood, was passed by both House
and Senate in 2000, and signifies the U.S.
government’s commitment to partner with
the private sector to provide sanctuaries
for chimpanzees retired from medical
research. In December 2006, President
George W. Bush signed the Chimp Haven
is Home Act into law, which prohibits the
removal of or research on retired chimpanzees living in federal sanctuaries. Chimp
Haven

( />index.cfm), a nonprofit organization, has
received $24 million from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) to build and
manage a sanctuary on a 200-acre site of
forested land donated by the citizens of
Caddo Parish in Louisiana. Chimp Haven
must raise funds themselves equal to 10
percent of the government grant.
There are other sanctuaries in North
America. Richard Allen and Gloria
Grow of the Fauna Foundation have
built a sanctuary for 15 chimpanzees
near Montreal in Canada. It was the
first sanctuary of its kind, built to house
chimpanzees infected with AIDS and
hepatitis as well as clean individuals. It
serves as a precedent, inspiring others to
make the same commitment. The next
sanctuary for ex-lab chimps was built by
Carole Noon in Florida. The first group
to be housed there comprised 21 of the
so-called Air Force chimpanzees from
the Holloman Air Force Base in New
Mexico. Some of these are descendents