July 2, 2012 12:59 pm
Chimps Celebrate the End of a Research Era
A baby chimp from covert footage taken in 1986 at Bioqual. Photo: True Friends.
For 30 years, countless chimps have lived out their days at Bioqual, a research facility where the Humane Society described treatment of some animals as “unethical.” Now, the last four chimps living at Bioqual are bidding goodbye to the facility, thanks in part to a recent report calling most chimp research unnecessary.
The Washington Post reports:
While about 1,000 research chimps live in the United States — down from 1,500 in 1997 — a landmark report from the influential Institute of Medicine (IOM) last December labeled nearly all chimpanzee research as scientifically unjustified.
Drug companies, which also fund some chimp research, are also backing away from the practice as lower-cost, higher-tech alternatives emerge.
The path to reform first started in 1986 when chimp activist group “True Friends” released this disturbing video of Bioqual’s chimp and monkey facilities:
Though public protest and a visit by Jane Goodall resulted in some improvements, animal rights activists still cried foul.
After the release of the IOM report last year, the battle heated up. PETA bought $1,000 in Bioqual stock to get a seat at shareholders’ meetings.
Then in May, another activist group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, escalated the fight: They filed a petition with the Agriculture Department, asking for an investigation into alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which requires labs to “promote the psychological well-being” of chimpanzees. The enclosures were still too small, the group said: about the footprint of an office cubicle, 64 square feet. The chimps had no access to the outdoors. And they were often housed alone.
In late May, a surprise visit from USDA inspectors found only one minor issue, said Dave Sacks, spokesman for the agency’s enforcement office: Too many cockroaches.
Then, the NIH filed an additional complaint that too many monkeys were still being kept in isolation. That case was eventually dropped, but the USDA’s investigation is ongoing.
Now, the few remaining chimps are finally on their way out at the end of this summer. But all is not rosy at the end of this rainbow; they’re being transported to another research facility in Louisiana.
The Bioqual chimps, meanwhile, will join some 350 others of their kind at the much larger Louisiana lab. There, some chimpanzees are kept indoors, in enclosures similar to Bioqual’s. But others get to roam outside, under geodesic domes, in groups, with fresh air to breathe and trees to climb.
If they survive that ordeal, eventually they will be retired to a sanctuary.
Back at Bioqual, the staff are adjusting to life without the chimps.
[John] Landon, [head of the company,] jokes that after the last of the chimps leaves, he’ll turn the 26 glass-and-steel enclosures into offices. “No one has taken me up on it,” he said of his 140 workers.
More from Smithsonian.com:
Chimps Shouldn’t be Entertainers
Depressed Looking Chimp at the Zoo
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The end of the chimpanzee research in Rockville signals the retirement of the NIH/NIAID Laboratory of Infectious Disease (LID) scientists whose research was conducted in a contract facility. There has been a nearly endless stream of misinformation regarding the contract facility throughout that time. More than 20 years ago, the environments there were dramatically upgraded, and they were visited and praised by Senator Melcher and Jane Goodall, among others. Even so, some extremists (many of whom actually know better) continue to claim that nothing changed. Much documentation exists that the improvements were substantial, real, and effective.
Comment by Joe Erwin — July 2, 2012 @ 6:27 pm
BTW, do those images actually look like chimpanzees to anyone? They appear to be macaques. Similar images have been published elsewhere by animal rights advocates, in which it is clear that the people selecting the photos were not even aware enough of primates to distinguish between apes and monkeys. Not a great sign of credibility.
While New Iberia does, indeed, have a number of large domed enclosures, I am aware that they have some indoor enclosures. As far as I know, however, none in any facility where chimpanzees are kept, aside from some good zoos, have anything similar to the ones at BIOQUAL.
Comment by Joe Erwin — July 3, 2012 @ 4:00 pm
Joe Erwin, your comment seems disingenuous. How about this: Chimpanzees living their lives in windowless enclosures, demonstrating behaviors characteristic for psychological harm, often singly housed, and used in experiments that have been discredited by the Institute of Medicine. This is all OK with you?
I’m guessing you are employed at BIOQUAL.
Comment by John Pippin, MD — July 3, 2012 @ 4:17 pm
I was employed by BIOQUAL more than 20 years ago to devise and implement an environmental enrichment program for primates, which I did. This included design of new environments to replace the old Horsfall biocontainment units supplied under the NIH contract. I left my position at National Geographic to take on this task, although I continued my conservation biology field work in Indonesia. Fortunately, I was able to design a dramatically improved environment for the chimpanzees, which operated well for more than 20 years. The IoM has not discredited the work that was done there. Instead, that work was identified as critically important for its time. The NIH investigators have retired, and the contracts are ending. Jane Goodall and Senator Melcher and many other people visited after the improved environments were in place and praised it as a great advance over the previous situation. I’m semi-retired, but I do provide consultation to BIOQUAL and other facilities on environmental enrichment and facility improvements.
Comment by Joe Erwin — July 3, 2012 @ 7:38 pm
I note that Dr. John Pippin is employed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the sister organization to PeTA.
Comment by Joe Erwin — July 3, 2012 @ 7:48 pm
The following is a quote from Senator John Melcher (DVM) from 20 years ago:
“I also visited BIOQUAL, Inc., a company engaged in biomedical research. BIOQUAL negotiated an innovative contract with NIH in which they shared the costs of new quarters for the chimpanzees at the BIOQUAL building. These quarters are not cages, but small rooms permitting easy climbing or swinging. They are completely windowed and hardly resemble cages. They truly do ‘enhance psychological well-being.’ There is no comparison of BIOQUAL’s chimpanzee rooms to the harsh limitations of the small cage size specified by the USDA regulations. BIOQUAL chose to exceed the regulations and implemented a design that made sense to them. Both NIH and the Department of Agriculture can learn from BIOQUAL’s example of caring for laboratory primates.”
OUR ANIMAL WARDS, Winter, 1992, Page 15.
But, Dr. Pippin and PCRM will not acknowledge the enormous improvements made by BIOQUAL. Why? In part because their policy is, if I understand it correctly, that nothing of value can be learned from studying the health of animals, any animals, regardless of how humanely they are treated or the conditions under which they are kept. So, of course, even the much improved facility was still animal research, and lying about the conditions to mislead reasonable people is ethically appropriate for them if they see it as “lying in the service of a good cause.” Such lies are even constitutionally protected as free speech, as long as it is not intended to harm its target or to fraudulently obtain donations. Consider that if you are thinking of donating to an organization of this kind.
Comment by Joe Erwin — July 4, 2012 @ 11:06 am
Joe Erwin, PCRM is in no way connected to PETA, financially, administratively, or operationally. You have parroted an ad hominem attack sometimes used by those who can’t successfully engage the debate.
U.S. Senators can hardly be considered experts in the matter of chimpanzee research or laboratory environments. Those experts who have stated a position almost uniformly agree that it is not possible to establish a humane environment in laboratories for these animals who share 98% of our DNA and are so much like us emotionally and psychologically.
As someone who devised ways to “improve” captivity for chimpanzees, how do you feel about being a co-conspirator in their imprisonment and research-related physical and psychological trauma?
You still have not pointed out the lies you claim we made. PCRM also visited the facility in June 2012, at the invitation of John Landon. We saw 11 chimpanzees in glass-enclosed cages in a large windowless room, some of whom displayed classic signs of psychological trauma. We also saw single-housed chimpanzees in a separate enclosed area.
Yes, the photo is of a baby chimpanzee. I’d think you would know that.
Comment by John Pippin, MD — July 7, 2012 @ 10:48 am
As someone who works with primates I would like to offer two pictures for your consideration.
This is a baby chimpanzee:
http://www.ida-africa.org/images/site_graphics/Milou/milou3-sml_sponsor.jpg
This is a baby patas monkey:
http://thewondrous.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/D.J.-the-Patas-Monkey-Rosamond-Gifford-Zoo-600×366.jpg
A simple google search could have told the author, editors, and readers of this article that they are horribly misinformed regarding the subject of this picture. This speaks volumes about the credibility of this piece, an unfortunate error on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. I would hope anyone remotely informed about primates would be able to make the distinction between a monkey and an ape.
Comment by M. Christine Marie C. — July 10, 2012 @ 3:10 pm
Christine Marie is correct about the picture being of a patas monkey. There were patas monkeys in that facility for many years. An innovative and spacious group enclosure was especially designed for patas socialization.
This is not the only instance in which pictures of monkeys have been presented as chimpanzees at this facility. There is kind of gossip game that goes on, with people just making up charges and others passing the lies forward as truth. One common piece of gossip was that 380 chimpanzees were kept in the facility in tiny cages that looked like microwave ovens. Another commented on the innovative glass-walled enclosures, but expressed for the chimpanzees kept in tiny cages “in the basement.” Of course, there never was a basement in the facility and no chimpanzees were kept in any enclosures other than the fully windowed ones.
The footage is accurately attributed to the group that claimed responsibility for “liberating” four young chimpanzees from the facility. Apparently one soon died and another was castrated. Many concerned and well-meaning people donate to PeTA and PCRM (which have long been very closely connected through their respective founders, a well known fact, that is nevertheless denied by the PCRM spokesman above). Sadly, these good people are being deliberately misled.
Comment by Joe Erwin — August 19, 2012 @ 10:14 am
That is “…expressed concern for….” Sorry for omitting word.
I should also say that I am quite glad that I was able to go into that situation and help to improve the quality of life for the chimpanzees and other primates there. Regardless of whether or not one approves of studying chimpanzees to benefit human health, if it is to be done, in my opinion, it needs to be done humanely. And if it is done humanely, what is the problem?
I do not approve of bringing any additional chimpanzees into captivity–anywhere–Africa or USA. But we have chimpanzees here in the US and they cannot be put back into the wild, at least on any large scale basis. There not room for more in zoos. Even the sanctuaries are full, and some are not really secure physically or fiscally. Besides, the most valuable role of sanctuaries is to take in chimpanzees that were reared as pets or exploited in entertainment. We are ethically obligated to provide lifetime care for all chimpanzees that have been involved in research. If we are obligated to support them, does that not create an opportunity for them to be humanely studied as part of a basis for their support? It is an obligation and an opportunity to learn from them, for our benefit and theirs.
Comment by Joe Erwin — August 19, 2012 @ 10:29 am