"Chimps could get endangered status in US; Tag may end research" by Darryl Fears | Washington Post, June 12, 2013
WASHINGTON — They can be bought online for personal use like a pair of sneakers. They can be leased to medical labs, where they are poked, prodded, and injected for a range of medical research projects.
But such practices could soon be on the way out. The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal Tuesday to protect the great ape under the Endangered Species Act both in captivity and in the wild.
Chimpanzees in the wild were listed as endangered 13 years ago, but those in captivity were listed as threatened, largely to allow for their trade and use in medical experiments. It is the agency’s only “split listing” for an endangered or threatened species, said Dan Ashe, the agency’s director.
Ashe said the split listing that allowed the commercial trade and use of chimpanzees in areas such as entertainment confused the public into thinking the animals are not threatened, when they are struggling to survive. Human encroachment on their habitat and the hunting of apes for a delicacy called bushmeat has threatened them with extinction.
“It brings attention to the plight of chimpanzees in the wild,” Ashe said. “It’s an opportunity to talk to the public about the nature of the threat to chimps. They believe human use of these animals is not contributing to their endangerment.”
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The proposal dovetails with recent determinations by two federal research institutions that the use of chimpanzees for research related to neuroscience, infectious diseases, and other ailments is unnecessary.
The United States is the only nation in the developed world that continues to use apes for research. European nations banned the practice years ago....
Ashe said he is not sure how the proposal would change the use of chimps for circuses and Hollywood entertainment.
Conservationists want him to take a hard line. “There are breeders who breed them for pets and the entertainment industry . . . dressing them up, and clothes make people think of them as not endangered,” said Kathleen Conlee, vice president for animal research issues at the Humane Society.
The National Institutes of Health, which has employed apes as test subjects for decades, has scaled back its use in recent years. According to its website, the agency owned more than 650 chimpanzees in research facilities, where they are subjected to experiments, and in sanctuaries, where they are not, as of October 2012.
But what the National Institutes of Health will decide is an open question. The agency maintains that medical research on chimpanzees has benefited humans. It led to vaccines for hepatitis A and B, now in use; the finding that elevated levels of salt in diets leads to high blood pressure; and the development of antibodies for treatments of cancer.
A co-chairman of a NIH panel, Daniel Geschwind, said “there is no compelling reason to maintain a large research population” and recommended that most apes be retired.
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Related: New Mexico Goes Ape
Also see: Gandhi, Gorillas, and the Boston Globe
