The use of chimpanzees
and other great apes in entertainment is inappropriate and often
very cruel, requiring the animals to perform unnatural acts day
after day, on command. Below is a letter from Jane Goodall to
professionals in the entertainment and advertising industry
outlining the arguments against this brand of animal
exploitation.
Dear ______________,
I am writing to ask you to consider an
aspect of the advertising trade that you may not have considered
before — the cost of using chimpanzees in advertising. As a media
professional, your work — now or in the future — may be tied to the
use of chimpanzees. I want to share some relevant information, which
I'm presenting in a Q&A format so that you can easily share this
knowledge with your colleagues.
How are chimpanzees
trained to perform?
They are separated from their
mothers as infants. This is truly tragic, because in the wild, the
child stays with his or her family for at least eight years.
Furthermore — trainers require obedient subjects. Although it is
possible to train animals using only kindness, reward and praise,
this requires the kind of time and patience which simply are lacking
in the fast-moving world of show-business. Many trainers will admit
that they beat their performers during training. In many cases the
abuse is horrendous.
What happens to the
performers after they reach puberty?
When they are six
to eight years old, they typically become more difficult to handle.
To make them manageable, trainers may have the chimps' teeth pulled
or may fit them with shock collars under their clothes.
But usually the performers, when they
are no longer amenable to discipline, are discarded. And it is
becoming harder and harder to place them. Like human children, ape
children learn by watching adults and imitating their behavior. They
learn in a social context. And individuals who have no chance to
grow up in a normal group not only fail to learn the nuances of
chimp etiquette, but in addition are likely to show abnormal
behaviors. These chimps are not accepted by accredited zoos. They
tend not to fit into established groups. And so, unless they can be
placed in one of the few sanctuaries for abused, surplus chimps,
they will end up in roadside zoos or being quietly
euthanized.
Does using chimpanzees
in entertainment and advertising help people to appreciate them
more?
The use of chimpanzees for advertising is so at
odds with the individual's normal life and habits, and creates
terribly wrong perceptions of these amazing creatures. Do you
realize that the chimpanzee's smile so often seen on TV is actually
a grin of fear? These trained performers suffer greatly for our
amusement.
Because performing chimpanzees and
orangutans are young (the adults are far too large, powerful, and
potentially dangerous), people have the impression that these apes
are small, cute and cuddly. They can have no concept of the majesty
of the full-grown animal. And it is this unrealistic picture that
perpetuates the continued buying and selling of young chimpanzees as
"pets."
At least entertainment
chimpanzees don't represent a drain on wild
populations.
Many people don't realize chimpanzees are
endangered in the wild, as are all the other great apes — gorillas,
orangutans and bonobos. In fact, the number of human beings born
every day is greater than the number of other remaining great apes
in the wild. And while it is true that circus chimpanzees in North
America were bred in captivity, this is not necessarily true in
parts of the world where the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species either has not been ratified or is not enforced.
And so European circuses or side-shows may well travel with
chimpanzee or orangutan performers who were born in the wild. Thus
the use of apes (and other endangered species) in entertainment does
represent a drain on rapidly decreasing wild populations.
Many of these arguments also apply to
the use of other exotic animals such as lions, tigers, elephants and
bears. Especially considering the new abilities of animatronics and
other computer imagery, there is really no justification for forcing
these amazing creatures to suffer for our amusement or gain. I hope
you'll join the growing number of businesses that refuse to sanction
or participate in this gross misuse of creatures who are vulnerable
to our exploitation precisely because they are so like
us.
Sincerely,
Jane Goodall, PhD,
DBE