“Therefore, after careful review of existing chimpanzee resources, NCRR [National Center for Research Resources] has determined that it does not have the financial resources to support the breeding of chimpanzees that are owned or supported by NCRR.”  Read more (National Institutes of Health Official Website)

Thanks in part to efforts by Project R&R supporters, the National Center for Research Resources (one of the 27 Institutes/Centers of the National Institutes of Health, NIH) has announced that:

“…after careful review of existing chimpanzee resources, NCRR has determined that it does not have the financial resources to support the breeding of chimpanzees that are owned or supported by NCRR.”

The agenda of today’s (May 22nd) NCRR meeting included consideration of whether or not to lift the voluntary breeding moratorium in place since 1995 on NCRR-owned and supported chimpanzees. The decision came on the heels of work by Project R&R’s Advisory Board and supporters to permanently end the breeding of chimpanzees. Project R&R generated thousands of emails and letters to Barbara Alving, MD, NCRR Director.

“We applaud this decision by NCRR,” says Dr. Theodora Capaldo, director of Project R&R. “It potentially spares hundreds of chimpanzees from being born and living their entire lives in laboratory confinement and use. To those who remain in labs, our committment to their release and restitution is infused with new optimism.”

More Information
Wording of NCRR’s decision
Working groups recommendations

Emory University’s Yerkes Primate Research Center has been awarded a $10 million federal grant to compare how mental abilities decline in aging humans, chimpanzees and rhesus macaques. Read more (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Read Project R&R’s Letter-to-the-Editor

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Read “A Brief Overview of Chimpanzees and Aging Research”
See a summary of Yerkes Primate Center’s USDA violations
Take action for Wenka and other Elder chimpanzees
Read more about the 2004 death of chimpanzee Dover at Yerkes

Help rescue Wenka and 17 other Elder chimpanzees before time runs out.
Ask for their release from research labs and placement into permanent sanctuary.

Wenka is a frail 53-year-old chimpanzee, held at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, who deserves the comfort of sanctuary before she dies. In captivity, chimpanzees can live up to 50-60 years. Her time is running out.

Your immediate help is needed to secure Wenka’s release along with 17 other chimpanzees born in the 1950s who are still held at labs around the country.* Some have spent their entire lives in a laboratory enduring multiple procedures or being repeatedly “bred” to make more babies for research. Some were captured as infants in Africa.

The Chimpanzee Elders Who Need Our Help*

• Gwen, age 54 – New Iberia Research Center (deceased)
• Susie, age 52 – Primate Foundation of Arizona, AZ (deceased)
• Wenka, age 53 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Cheeta, age 50 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Lulu, age 50 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Maxine, age 50– Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Flo, age 49 – Alamogordo Primate Facility, NM (government owned)
• Harriet, age 49 – Primate Foundation of Arizona, AZ (deceased)
• Karen, age 49 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Billy Ray, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Guy, age 48 – Alamogordo Primate Facility, NM (government owned)
• Jake, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA (deceased)
• Jenda, age 48 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA (deceased)
• Reba, age 48 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA (deceased)
• Boka, age 47 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA (deceased)
• Diana, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Jan, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Julius, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Lady Bird, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Pumpkin, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Sandy, age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Walter B., age 47 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Clay, age 46 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Martha, age 46 - Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Mary, age 46 - Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA

*Some labs have not responded to our requests for 2005-2006 information. Therefore, it is unknown if all the individuals listed above are still alive, have been transferred to other facilities, or if other elders exist.

You can change their fate and help make their remaining years a life of dignity and protection in sanctuary by clicking here to sign onto the Project R&R letter demanding their immediate release from the laboratories that currently hold them.

She was old and grateful for the small kindnesses,
like good fruit and sunshine.
–A former Yerkes lab worker’s recollection of Wenka

A former lab worker remembers Wenka vividly: “Her fingers were long and delicate, her palms fragile, and they seemed to perfectly represent her sweet and passive nature.” According to Project R&R’s sources at the Yerkes lab, Wenka is still alive – presently living in a group setting with seven or eight other chimpanzees who are all younger than her. Our most current information indicates that she is the third oldest chimpanzee in research in the world.

HOW TO HELP
Sign the Project R&R letter that will be sent to NIH officials, lab directors, and affiliated university presidents – individuals who can show compassion to these elderly chimpanzees whose lives have been spent and exhausted by research.

According to a recent independent public survey
commissioned by Project R&R, 71% of Americans
support the release of chimpanzees who have spent
longer than 10 years in a laboratory.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Read FAQs about retiring Elders
• Read new information about Wenka and the Elders.
• Read more about Wenka and other chimpanzees from a former lab worker.
• View WHO’S THERE? lists of the chimpanzee individuals held in labs.
• Read about the trauma of lab life for chimpanzees.
• Bad medicine: Using elder chimpanzees in human aging research
• A Brief Overview of Chimpanzees and Aging Research
• Contact us at releasechimps@neavs.org

Make a donation: help Project R&R’s rescue
efforts. These chimpanzees have little time left!