Over 20 activists with Progress For Science, a Los Angeles-based animal rights group, staged a protest at the Santa Monica home of Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) board member Steven White over the mistreatment of animals at Project Chimps, HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary in Georgia.

White and his colleagues on the boards of HSUS and Project Chimps have refused to acknowledge and rectify animal welfare issues raised by 22 former sanctuary employees and volunteers who sent a letter to Project Chimps board to voice their concerns about poor veterinary care, infrequent access to the outdoors (10 hours/week), overcrowding, rushed chimpanzee introductions, a lack of sufficient enrichment in their concrete enclosures and other forms of neglect and deprivation. Two of these individuals, Crystal Alba and Lindsay Vanderhoogt, posted photos, videos and reports documenting the abuse on HelpTheChimps.org after they attempted to effect change from within Project Chimps.

Animal rights activists are demanding that HSUS’s Project Chimps provide the animals in their care with daily access to the outdoors

“The chimps are living in woefully substandard conditions at Project Chimps after being subjected to a lifetime of laboratory experiments,” said Cory Mac, an organizer with Progress For Science. “Instead of attempting to silence credible whistleblowers, Steven White and his colleagues at HSUS should be focused on improving animal care and providing the chimps with a humane retirement.”  In August, Project Chimps dropped a federal lawsuit it filed against Alba and Vanderhoogt, who continue to speak out on behalf of the chimps.

Animal rights activists with Progress for Science protest the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) over the mistreatment of animals at its Project Chimps sanctuary in Georgia

On July 9th, National Geographic published an in depth, investigative story about the animal cruelty allegations and the lawsuit against the whistleblowers. While it includes statements from both sides, the story paints a grim and disturbing picture of animal welfare that corroborates the allegations of the whistleblowers.

National Georgraphic investigative story about animal mistreatment at HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary, Project Chimps

Steven White is the third HSUS board member to be targeted with protests. In San Francisco, primatologist Bob Ingersoll and local activists protested at the Nob Hill home of Susan Atherton, the co-chair of HSUS’s Board of Directors. In New York, animal rights activists with TheirTurn staged two protests at an upscale clothing store owned by HSUS board member Brad Jakeman.

Animal rights activists demand the Steven White and his colleagues on HSUS’s Board of Directors improve animal welfare at Project Chimps

Animal rights activists vow to continue holding HSUS’s board members accountable until they improve the welfare standards at Project Chimps. Among their demands are providing the chimps with daily access to the outdoors; not taking in additional chimps until they can be accommodated humanely and hiring an Executive Director with chimpanzee experience.

Board members of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have been targeted with protests animal rights activists in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York who are demanding improved welfare conditions at its Project Chimps sanctuary in Georgia

In its public statements, HSUS asserts that third party inspections have exonerated Project Chimps of the animal cruelty allegations. However, the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS), a sanctuary accrediting organization, made several animal welfare recommendations after conducting an investigation, in spite of its close financial ties to HSUS. Another inspection that HSUS references in an effort to discredit the welfare allegations was conducted by a veterinarian who HSUS paid $20,000 in “consulting” fees, in spite of the fact that she lives in a different state.

The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) made some of the same animal welfare recommendations as the whistleblowers

Among the protesters at Steven White’s home was Carole Raphaelle Davis, a Hollywood actress who recently starred in Madam Secretary. During her Facebook livestream, Davis encapsulated the feelings of many of the activists who participated ‘The Humane Society is the largest animal welfare organization in the country and is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars; it can easily afford to give these animals the life they deserve, but they don’t and that’s why we won’t back down until they fix this wrong. The mistreatment of these chimps in their care is just not right. It’s not fair.”

The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos has plastered 300 large posters throughout New York City in an effort to call attention to the risk of zoonotic disease transmission during Kaporos, an animal slaughter ritual that takes place each year in the week leading up to Yom Kippur. During Kaporos, practitioners swing live chickens around their heads without PPE and kill them in makeshift slaughterhouses erected without permits on public streets in violation of eight NYC health codes.

Each year, factory farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania deliver over 100,000 live chickens to Kaporos vendors in Williamsburg, Borough Park and Crown Heights and several other neighborhoods in New York City. The chickens are typically held in crates on public streets for up to several days with no food, water or protection from weather extremes, conditions that weaken the animals’ immune systems and make them vulnerable to disease.

Over 100,000 chickens are intensively confined in crates for up to several days leading up to the Kaporos ritual. Chickens who died from hunger, thirst, exposure or illness are often found in crates with the live chickens (photo: Unparalleled Suffering Photography)

During Kaporos, public streets and sidewalks are contaminated with the body parts and blood of thousands of chickens who are killed in makeshift slaughterhouses erected without permits in violation of eight NYC health codes. (photo: Suzanne Stein Photography)

Thousands of chickens die in their crates each year from hunger, thirst, exposure and disease before they are used in the ritual, and many of the chickens who practitioners physically handle during the ritual show signs of respiratory disease. Of the tens of thousands of people who partake in the ritual, only a small fraction wear protective gear, such as gloves. It’s this kind of interaction between humans and sick animals that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to putting the public at risk of another zoonotic disease outbreak, the large Kaporos gatherings throughout Brooklyn could be “super-spreader” events for COVID-19 because the Hasidic Jewish communities do not practice social distancing or wear masks.

During Kaporos, over 100,000 chickens are slaughtered and bled out onto public streets in violation of 8 city health codes

The Kaporos poster campaign targets NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio because he has ignored the pleas of animal rights and public health advocates to stop Kaporos from taking place due to the fact that it violates city and state health and cruelty laws and jeopardizes the public health.

Mayor de Blasio’s Health Commissioners have refused to address a toxicology report that outlines the risk posed by the mass slaughter of over 100,000 animals on public streets during Kaporos.

According to a toxicologist who studied fecal and blood samples taken during Kaporos, the ritual “constitutes a dangerous condition” and “poses a significant public health hazard.” In recent years, several New Yorkers who did not partake in the ritual contracted E. coli and campylobacter after coming into contact with these contaminants. Advocates believe that many Kaporos practitioners have also gotten sick but that the insular Hasidic communities would not report the illnesses to the Department of Health.

The Alliance to End Chickens as Kaporos plastered 300 posters around NYC to draw attention to the risk of zoonotic disease transmission that could lead to another pandemic

“The Police and Health Commissioners are political appointees, and their boss, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, has clearly instructed them to assist in Kaporos because the practitioners represent a powerful voting bloc,” said Donny Moss, an organizer in the effort to compel the city to enforce the laws. “Not only does the City provides police barricades, floodlights and an army of police officers and sanitation workers, but it also provides the traffic cones where tens of thousands of chickens are bled out onto public streets.”

City health codes that are violated during Kaporos

Frank Liotti, a stand-up comedian from New York City, thought he had food poisoning one night when he got off the stage at a club in Ohio. When his symptoms didn’t improve after a week in bed, he went to the emergency room where he received chilling diagnosis. During an interview with TheirTurn, Liotti describes a dramatic life-saving change and explains the surprising reason he has been able to maintain it.

Stand-up comedian Frank Liotti makes the switch to a plant-based diet after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Animal rights activists in San Francisco staged a protest at the San Francisco home of Susan Atherton, the co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of United States (HSUS), to demand that she and her colleagues drop a lawsuit against two whistleblowers who came forward with evidence of animal abuse at HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary in Georgia, Project Chimps.

“We don’t understand why Ms. Atherton is suing the whistleblowers instead of addressing the welfare issues raised by them and 20 other current and former Project Chimps’s employees,” said Bob Ingersoll, a primatologist and chimp advocate who organized the protest. “Perhaps she just has poor judgment, as evidenced by the fact that she proudly wears real fur and animal skin, which flies in the face of the mission of the Humane Society of the United States.”

While pedestrians expressed their support of the protesters, Atherton’s agitated neighbors were less sympathetic, claiming that the activists were targeting the “wrong person” and arguing that the activists were “going about this the wrong way.”

The Humans Society of the Untied States claims to oppose fur, but Susan Atherton, the co-chair of its Board of Directors, wears real fur.

In July 2020, HSUS’s Project Chimps filed the defamation lawsuit against the whistleblowers, Lindsay Vanderhoogt, a founding staff member who resigned in 2018, and Crystal Alba, a veterinary assistant, who was fired in March, 2020, over her ongoing demands for reform. Knowing that the welfare standards would decline further without Alba, she and Vanderhoogt continued to advocate for the chimps by calling for outside investigations and sounding the alarm about the abuses, which, at the time of Crystal’s departure, included appalling veterinary care (suspected untreated broken limbs, untreated deep wounds and parasitic infection); barren, concrete enclosures and porches devoid of enrichment where they spend the vast majority of their time; and infrequent access to the outdoor habitat. According to Crystal, one group of 14 chimps had no habitat access for eight months.

The Project Chimps whistleblowers meticulously documented the decline in care and their efforts to help the chimps

When Crystal’s efforts to effect change from within the organization failed, she and the second whistleblower, Lindsay Vanderhoogt, posted documentation of these abuses on HelpTheChimps.org.

At HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary, Project Chimps, the chimpanzees spend all but 10 hours a week in concrete enclosures

In February, 2020, Alba and Vanderhoogt contacted the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) to ask for an inspection. In spite of the financial ties between GFAS and HSUS, GFAS made multiple animal care recommendations that echoed those of the whistleblowers and validated their allegations of animal mistreatment. Nevertheless, HSUS continues to assert that Crystal and Lindsay are simply “disgruntled employees” who fabricated the allegations, and it continues to attempt to silence them through a federal lawsuit.

The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS) made some of the same recommendations as the whistleblowers to to improve the welfare of the chimps

In an Animals 24/7 article about the controversy, reporter Merritt Clifton noted the absurdity of HSUS’s litigation against the whistleblowers even after GFAS validated their complaints. “That’s a bit like getting convicted by a kangaroo court, if you’ll pardon the expression, controlled by one’s own mob; accepting the sentence; and then trying to kill all the witnesses.”

Alba and Vanderhoogt are not the only former HSUS/Project Chimps’s employees who have come forward. In three page letter sent to Project Chimps’s board, a total of 22 “former and current Project Chimps employees, volunteers, interns, and donors” articulated their concerns about “serious welfare issues at Project Chimps.”

Click image to read letter to Project Chimps signed by 22 whistleblowers, who are former and current employees

In an apparent effort to distance herself from the controversy, Atherton removed herself from the board of Project Chimps in July. However, because Project Chimps is an HSUS sanctuary, she continues to be accountable as co-chair of its Board of Directors.

In spite of her senior roles at the Humane Society and San Francisco SPCA, Susan Atherton wears animal skins

Protest organizer Bob Ingersoll says that the group plans to continue protesting until Atherton “does the right thing” by dropping the lawsuit and improving the care of the chimpanzees at Project Chimps.

Animal rights activists demand that Susan Atherton, the co-chair of the Board of Directors of HSUS, drop the lawsuit against two whistleblowers who came forward with evidence of animal abuse at HSUS’s chimpanzee sanctuary, Project Chimps