A controversy is currently raging in Louisiana and Texas –– and it has nothing to do with the presidential race.  Six chimpanzees are caught in a custody battle between two sanctuaries, Chimp Haven and Primarily Primates, both of which claim the right to house them. The chimps’ plight, and the lack of media attention devoted to it, highlights a basic flaw in our legal system regarding these highly intelligent, emotionally complex animals, who have about as many rights as your living room sofa: our closest cousins, capable of outperforming human undergraduates in short term memory recall, are mere pieces of property.

A little background:  in the spring of 2006, Ohio State University closed its primate cognition research center, and the university sent nine chimpanzees to the supposedly safe Primarily Primates Inc.  The chimpanzees arrived to squalid conditions, inadequate food, and general neglect. In October 2006, the Texas State Attorney General’s office responded to accusations of neglect and misappropriation of funds by closing the facility and placing the organization in receivership.  Once again, the OSU chimps found themselves on the road, this time to Louisiana’s chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimp Haven, a government- and private donation-supported facility with large outdoor enclosures. A year later, with its facility cleaned up, Primarily Primates asked Chimp Haven for the return of the animals.  Chimp Haven refused, citing the best interest of the chimps.  A legal battle ensued, with a Texas court ruling this March that the chimpanzees belonged to Primarily Primates and should be returned. 

Although at first glance the court decision may seem straightforward, it is anything but.  The ruling disregards the nature of chimpanzees and their physical and social needs.  Chimps do not travel well, making every trip potentially life-threatening.  Their health also depends on social factors –– they need stable, loving relationships to thrive.  Chimps have been known to waste away in the absence of their friends and family. The OSU chimps have already endured scientific experiments, long journeys, and upheaval. Why make them live through yet another traumatic transition?

What’s more, chimpanzees have excellent memories.  If they survive the trip back to Texas, they will recognize PPI as the place where they languished. Imagine being held in a squalid prison cell with no windows, little food, covered with your own feces – exactly the conditions these chimps endured –– and then finally being given a fuller life in open spaces with the sun beating down on you. You make friends, form bonds, sprawl on the grass.  Now imagine what it would be like to wake up one day back in your old prison; no matter how refurbished it is, you will always associate it with the past and live in fear of its return.  While this comparison may seem like a stretch to those who do not know much about chimpanzees, it is not.  Chimpanzees experience emotions not that dissimilar to human ones.  They will remember.

Linda Brent, the director of Chimp Haven, asked Primarily Primates to allow a third party to judge what was in the best interest of the chimps. PPI refused. Their lawyers probably knew that the issue of property was a clear one; Chimp Haven was never granted ownership, and so PPI correctly counted on the decision going in their favor.  Whether or not the chimps should return to PPI should not be decided on the basis of ownership but instead with a more humane and compassionate evaluation.  We need to stop regarding these highly intelligent animals as objects.  Perhaps it is time to create a third legal category, neither property nor person, that ensures that the non-human primates held captive in this country can be assigned advocates in court cases such as this.  Let someone who has no vested interest in either facility, but who has an extensive knowledge of chimpanzee behavior and needs, determine what is best.  We have stolen generations of chimpanzees out of Africa for research and entertainment purposes.  Now we must protect their offspring in the same responsible way we would want for human children.  After all, chimps are not only genetically our closest cousins.  They are also the animal that most closely matches our emotional, intellectual, and social selves.

Copyright 2008 by Debbie Lee Wesselmann