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Wed 25 Feb 2009 06:12

Loving chimps to death

By Jane Goodall

Last week in Stamford, Conn., a chimpanzee named Travis was shot and killed 
after he mauled a friend of his owner. The chimpanzee lived with a widow, 
eating lobster and ice cream at the table, wearing human clothes and 
entertaining himself with a computer and television. 

But as the tragedy made clear, a chimpanzee can never be totally domesticated.

The human brain is more highly developed than that of any other living 
creature. So why can't we learn that wild animals simply do not make good 
"pets"?

I believe it has a great deal to do with the fact that chimpanzees are so 
frequently used in entertainment and advertising. Only a month ago, Americans 
watching the Super Bowl may have laughed at an ad in which chimpanzees 
dressed as mechanics worked on a car. They seemed cute, funny and even 
lovable. Is it any wonder viewers might think that chimpanzees would make 
great pets? 

Nothing could be further from the truth. Only infant chimpanzees are used in 
entertainment and advertising, because as they approach maturity, at about 6 
to 8 years of age, they become strong and unmanageable. Chimpanzees evolved 
in the tropical forests of Africa, and that's where they're suited to live, 
roaming in groups of their own kind. A house in Connecticut was a completely 
alien environment for a chimp.

Yet as a "domesticated" chimpanzee, Travis could never have returned to the 
wild. He had never learned the array of skills necessary to survive there. 
The entertainment industry and pet owners rarely, if ever, provide for the 
long-term care of chimpanzees. Zoos don't want them because they have not 
learned to interact with others of their kind. So most of these poor 
creatures spend the rest of their lives -- as much as 50 years or more -- in 
small cages in circuses, roadside attractions and, yes, even in the homes of 
individuals who lack the means to provide for them. 

Meanwhile, more infant chimpanzees are bred to maintain the supply for the 
entertainment industry. 

The use of chimpanzees in entertainment and advertising not only condemns 
chimpanzees to lives they were not meant to live, it makes it hard for people 
to believe that these apes are actually endangered in the wild. But they are. 

Chimpanzees are losing habitat, in part because of commercial logging and in 
part because of encroachment by ever-growing human populations who live in 
poverty and cut down the forest to grow crops and graze cattle. This 
deforestation also contributes significantly to climate change. And sometimes 
chimpanzees are caught up in ethnic conflicts or killed for their meat, a 
practice that is believed to have led to the human strains of HIV. 

The Connecticut tragedy should remind us not just that chimpanzees do not 
make good pets but that their fate is intimately tied to ours.

Jane Goodall is founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a U.N. Messenger of 
Peace. Information about her work can be found at www.janegoodall.org.