Chimpanzee that

Today the news came in that two of the largest American chimpanzee labs have shut down (citing “financial difficulties”). This can’t be a bad thing but it is very, very sobering to remember there are still thousands of chimps in laboratories across the US.

These are labs are performing traumatic tests on animals thought to share at least 94 per cent of our genetic make up. They can laugh, solve problems, learn sign language and make and use tools in the wild but we seem to think it’s acceptable to keep them in tiny cages and use them for experiments for our own ends.

For anyone who is interested the Release Chimps website has some great and horrible stories about chimps that have been rescued from labs. They also have a petition going.