US Friends, 202 Captive Chimps Still Need Your Help
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Please Help Save a Chimpanzee, a Lion, and a Wolf
***Please remember that after selecting “Send Message” you need to select “Click to Finish” on the second page, thank you.
From Born Free
More than 200 former research chimpanzees have been housed on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, at the Alamogordo Primate Facility (APF). They have been at APF, which does not permit invasive research on site, since 2001. But they are not out of the woods! While both the chimpanzees at APF and the facility itself are owned by the federal government, a for-profit biomedical research company, Charles River Laboratories, has held a 10-year, $42.8 million contract to manage the chimps. This contract is set to expire in May 2011.
The contract’s expiration presents an opportunity for the chimps’ care to be taken over by a non-profit organization so that they can remain where they are for life, free from having to ever endure human experimentation again. However, the National Institutes of Health intends to transfer the chimpanzees from APF to San Antonio to once again be subjected to invasive research, with the $2 million to $3 million tab for transfer and research being picked up by taxpayers. Congress has the ability to step in and stop this move.
Please write your congressional representatives today , and urge them to contact the National Institutes of Health and ask them to do the right thing to ensure that these chimpanzees are retired from research for good! Our draft letter makes it easy for you.
MESSAGE TEXT
As your constituent, I urge you to contact the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to stop it from spending taxpayer money to transfer the Alamogordo Primate Facility chimpanzees to a research center in San Antonio for invasive research, and to demand an explanation of the transfer.
NIH, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, plans to send more than 200 semi-retired chimpanzees who have been living in the New Mexico facility to the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) in Texas. Transferring these animals would be both ethically and financially irresponsible.
To house chimpanzees at SNPRC, a $2 million to $3 million renovation must be performed, which I understand would be funded by taxpayers. I also understand that the experiments performed on these animals would be at taxpayer expense, with no guaranteed benefits. Many developed countries already have recognized the scientific futility of using chimpanzees as research subjects, as well as the ethical implications of subjecting these animals to pain, fear and suffering for spurious purposes. Many, if not all, of these chimpanzees already have endured being subjects of research for most of their lives, and they deserve to enjoy as much comfort and peace as possible. In the New Mexico governor’s own words, “New Mexico wants to save these chimpanzees who have already given so much of their lives to the American public as part of medical research studies.”
Please do what you can to ensure that the remaining chimpanzees at APF are retired from research and urge NIH to transfer care of these chimps to an appropriate nonprofit sanctuary organization. A sanctuary organization could provide much better care at an equal or lower cost than at the San Antonio laboratory — not to mention the substantial savings that would come from not having to pay for construction or transport.
Thank you for your consideration of this issue, which is of great importance to me and many other Americans who care about the treatment of our closest primate relatives.
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Our Compass 
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