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 54-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 (however, the average lifespan is between 30-45 years). Her time is running out.

Your immediate help is needed to secure Wenka’s release along with 17 other chimpanzees born between 1950 and 1960, 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 54 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Cheeta, age 51 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Lulu, age 51 – Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Maxine, age 51– Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Flo, age 51 – Alamogordo Primate Facility, NM (government owned)
• Harriet, age 49 – Primate Foundation of Arizona, AZ (deceased)
• Karen, age 50 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Billy Ray, age 49 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Guy, age 49 – 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 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Jan, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Julius, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Lady Bird, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Pumpkin, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Sandy, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Walter B., age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Clay, age 48 – New Iberia Research Center, LA
• Martha, age 48 - Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA
• Mary, age 48 - Yerkes National Primate Research Center, GA

*Some labs have not responded to our requests for 2006-2008 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!

Who’s living behind the bars? What are the names, lab ID numbers, ages, genders, and other identifying information of all the chimpanzees held today in U.S. labs? WHO’S THERE? is a campaign designed to find out – with your help.

We’re asking for your signature to demand that laboratories holding federally funded chimpanzees release their names, ages, and other crucial information. Project R&R has made formal requests, but as of February 2008 most labs are ignoring or dismissing those requests.

Your tax dollars demand an answer.

Project R&R has sent FOIA requests regarding all federally funded chimpanzees – including those at Chimp Haven, a facility for “retired” chimpanzees that receives 75% of its operating costs from the federal government.

To date, only one lab has have provided updated information on their residents, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Preparing a current census of chimpanzees in U.S. research facilities is going to take the work of every one of us. This data along with information provided by Project R&R sources will help us identify individual chimpanzees in most need of immediate rescue.  Research facilities cannot get away with moving chimpanzees from lab to lab, hiding the whereabouts of any one of them, and continuing to treat them like expendable commodities.  

HOW TO HELP: Sign the Who’s There Letter to demand that laboratories comply with federal disclosure laws. Even in the specific situations where technicalities and loopholes may allow labs to withhold information, the public and chimpanzees deserve better.

See existing Who’s There lists for each lab. (Click on the profile for each lab and open the Who’s There Excel chart)

Telling others about the plight of chimpanzees in U.S. labs in one of the simplest, yet most crucial ways you can help Project R&R. There are many easy tools and resources you can use:

• Tell-a-Friend: Ask them to visit the www.releasechimps.org to learn more and join our efforts.
• View Release and Restitution online: Project R&R’s 16-minute video presentation and email your friends to do the same. Or, order the CD. It’s an easy way to educate civic groups, schools, animal organizations and other venues.
• Distribute Project R&R’s brochure to family and friends and at events.
• Arrange a presentation of In Their Own Words for 150 people or more.
• Write a letter to your local newspaper.
• Donate or help raise funds.

While other nations have enacted bans and limitations on the use of chimpanzees and other great apes in research, the U.S. remains the single largest user of chimpanzees in the world.

Project R&R works for the release and restitution of all chimpanzees in all U.S. labs. In solidarity with U.S. efforts, organizations and individuals from countries around the globe can help.

Please sign the petition(s) below and show your support today!

Canadian citizens: Sign the Canadian Solidarity Petition to Ban Chimpanzee Research in Canada

Non-U.S. citizens (including Canadians): Sign our World Solidarity Petition to End Chimpanzee Research in the U.S.

On March 14, 2005, Project R&R, in collaboration with many of its advisory board member organizations as well as other organizations, submitted comments to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) regarding the “Proposed Rules on Standards of Care for Chimpanzees Held in the Federally Supported Chimpanzee Sanctuary System.”

On October 10, 2008, the DHHS’ drafted regulations for federal sanctuaries were accepted by NIH and published in the Federal Register (Vol. 73, No. 198). The finalized regulations will go into effect starting November, 10, 2008.

To read about Project R&R’s proposed standards that were accepted in the final NIH regulations, please click here.