Member News

Senators Want Chimps Moved to Sanctuary

Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall of New Mexico want the National Institutes of Health to reconsider a decision to keep more than 40 chimpanzees at a facility at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo.

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Formerly Ill and Hairless Bear Debuts New Coat and Happy Attitude After 2 Years of Rehab

NAPSA members care for more than primates! Eve the ‘bare bear’ was found in a dumpster on Christmas Eve 2017 with one of the worst cases of mange medical experts had ever seen, but she is now thriving at Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch.

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Watch Chimps Enjoy a Thanksgiving Feast

Everyone should get to enjoy Thanksgiving with a belly full of delicious food! That’s why Project Chimps put together a one-of-a-kind feast for the primates at the sanctuary.

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Argentinian Zoo Orangutan Granted ‘Non-Human Personhood’ Relocated to New Sanctuary Home

The famous orangutan was granted basic rights, such as life, freedom and a premise of “no harm” in an unprecedented ruling in 2015.

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Sandra the Orangutan, Freed from a Zoo After Being Granted ‘Personhood,’ Settles into her New Home

A 33-year-old orangutan who was granted ‘legal personhood’ in Argentina has been relocated to a new home in Wauchula, Florida. Patti Ragan, director of the Center for Great Apes where Sandra the orangutan is now living, told CNN she has been “inquisitive, calm, engaged and interested in her new surroundings” since her arrival.

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Orangutan Granted ‘Personhood’ Settles into New Florida Home

A 33-year-old orangutan granted legal personhood by a judge in Argentina is settling into her new surroundings at the Center for Great Apes in central Florida.

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‘I Think This is a Huge Victory’: Ruling in Argentina Opens Door to Granting Apes Personhood

Dr. Mary Lee Jensvold, an alternate on NAPSA’s Steering Committee, weighs in on the recent arrival of Sandra the orangutan to Center for Great Apes.

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Orangutan Granted Legal Personhood Moves to Florida

An orangutan granted legal personhood by a judge in Argentina is now hanging in Florida. Sandra, who is 33, was born in Germany and spent 25 years at the at the Buenos Aires Zoo before arriving at the Center for Great Apes in the Sunshine State.

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World’s Largest Chimpanzee Sanctuary Closer to San Antonio Than You Think

Just across the border into Louisiana, about a six-hour drive from the Alamo City, and you’ll find Chimp Haven in the town of Keithville. At 200 acres, it claims the title as biggest chimpanzee sanctuary in the world.

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Opinion: How We Treat Old Chimpanzees — and What That Says About Us

The National Institutes of Health announced that it will be breaking its promise to move 44 chimpanzees currently being held in a biomedical facility in New Mexico to Chimp Haven, a sanctuary in Louisiana. Francis Collins, the head of NIH, said a review panel had determined that these chimpanzees are either too old or too sick to relocate safely. This is bad news for the chimpanzees. It also reflects a troubling reality about all research on nonhuman subjects.

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Some Lab Chimps May Never Retire to a Sanctuary

In 2015, the National Institutes of Health decided to retire all the chimpanzees it owned. Since then, animal welfare groups have been pushing for quicker action, even as some of the facilities that once conducted experiments have urged caution, arguing that some chimps are too old and sick to be moved. In October 2019, the NIH announced that an independent panel of veterinarians had determined that the 44 chimpanzees remaining at the Alamogordo Primate Facility, or APF, in New Mexico were too ill to move, as the facility had contended. Rana Smith, president of Chimp Haven, expressed disappointment at the decision. “We respect the medical opinions of the veterinary panel,” she wrote in an email. However, she said, “we firmly believe that sanctuary life is the best place for chimpanzees.”

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NIH: Aging Chimps to Stay in NM

The National Institutes of Health said 44 aging chimpanzees are too fragile to be moved from the Alamogordo Primate Facility to a sanctuary in Louisiana. Instead, they will spend the rest of their lives at the facility in southeastern New Mexico, the NIH announced Thursday.

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