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After ignoring inquiries from animal advocacy groups for weeks, the New York Blood Center (NYBC) admitted to the NY Times that it abandoned 66 former lab chimps in Liberia, leaving them to starve to death after using them in experiments for three decades: “We never had any obligation for care for the chimps, contractual or otherwise.” The NYBC’s stunning admission has sent shockwaves through great ape conservation and animal protection organizations worldwide.

NYBC has abandoned chimps who they used in experiments in Liberia from 1974 – 2006

In a public letter to the NYBC, Jane Goodall, the legendary chimpanzee researcher said it’s “completely shocking and unacceptable that NYBC would abandon these chimpanzees,” adding that it has a “moral obligation to continue to care for them for the remainder of their lives.”

Jane Goodall has expressed outrage at the NYBC’s decision to abandon their research chimps (photo: National Geographic)

Betsy Brotman, the head of NYBC’s chimpanzee research program from 1974 – 2006, suggested that her former employer’s effort to shift responsibility to the Liberian government is unethical and deceptive: “We brought those chimps to the Institute and encouraged them to breed. This had nothing to do with the Liberian government.”

Betsy Brotman ran the NY Blood Center’s chimp research facility in Liberia

Ms. Brotman, who says that NYBC has an obligation to pay for the care of the chimps, is outraged by the organization’s callousness: “This is awful. It’s unspeakably awful.” Primatologist Brian Hare agrees. In an interview with the NY times, Dr Hare, who has studied wild and captive great apes around the world, said he has “never seen anything even remotely as disgusting as this.”

Caretaker feeds New York Blood Center’s former lab chimps

Florida Attorney Wally Baldwin, a Board Member of Center for Great Apes, said “When the news broke that the NYBC was abandoning the chimps, I thought they’d say ‘there’s been a misunderstanding’ and reinstate the funding. I was stunned to discover that the news was true.”

Christopher Hillyer, CEO of NYBC who earns over $1.2 million/year, has left chimps to starve

The NYBC has attributed its decision to cut funding for the chimps to difficult economic times for blood banks. Michael Budkie, the Director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) says that’s a poor excuse: “The NYBC has $400 million in assets; earns $320 million in annual income; and pays its President, Christopher Hillyer, over $1.2 million a year. Do they really expect us to believe that they don’t have the money to provide food and water for these animals?”

Please join the Facebook page New York Blood Center: Do the Right Thing and participate in the calls to action.

Call Christopher Hillyer, the President & CEO of the NY Blood Center, and demand that his organization fulfills its obligation and promise to provide lifelong care to the chimpanzees used in their medical experiments: (212) 570-3000.

The NY Times reports that animal law professor Steven Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project (Nh.R.P) have filed a lawsuit on behalf of a captive chimpanzee named Tommy, who is “the first nonhuman primate to ever sue a human captor in an attempt to gain his own freedom.” The Nh.R.P. plans to file similar lawsuits on behalf other great apes, dolphins, orcas, belugas, elephants and African gray parrots, all of whom have sophisticated cognitive abilities.

Chimps were chosen first because sanctuaries are prepared to take them if they win their freedom in court and because of the availability of research on their cognitive abilities: Advanced neurological and genetic research has shown that animals like chimpanzees, orcas and elephants possess self-awareness, self-determination and a sense of both the past and future. They have their own distinct languages, complex social interactions and tool use. They grieve and empathize and pass knowledge from one generation to the next. The very same attributes, in other words, that we once believed distinguished us from other animals.”

Imprisoning animals in zoos, labs, aquariums or any other captive setting is cruel. Imagine the frustration, stress, anxiety and depression experienced by orcas at Sea World; circus elephants on trains; and chimps in small cages in university basements! Please learn about and support the ground-breaking legal work of the Nonhuman Rights Project to free animals from captivity.

According to CNN, The Nonhuman Animal Rights Project (NhRP) lost its case in the state of New York to “grant captive chimpanzees the same rights as a ‘legal person.'” A victory would have freed four chimpanzees in the state and sent them to sanctuaries. NhRP, which intends to appeal the case, said it “plans to file more lawsuits across the country on behalf of captive animals ‘who are scientifically proven to be self-aware and autonomous,’ such as elephants, dolphins and whales.”

Wild animals lead complex and fulfilling lives in their natural habitat and should never be held captive by humans. Because chimps are so intelligent and relatable, advocacy groups have worked tirelessly to rescue them from laboratories, where they can be imprisoned and experimented on for life. To learn about how you can help bring an end to animal research, please visit Stop Animal Exploitation Now.