By Kitty Block and Sara Amundson
Al, a 51-year-old chimpanzee previously used in biomedical research, sees his new sanctuary home for the first time. Kierstin Luckett & Lauren Rager/Chimp Haven
Just recently, Al’s life changed forever.
The 51-year-old chimpanzee had lived at Alamogordo Primate Facility—a federally owned laboratory in New Mexico—for decades. He’d also been used in harmful research procedures there.
But earlier this year, Al arrived at Chimp Haven, a lush 200-acre forested sanctuary in Louisiana specifically designed to cater to the unique needs of chimps formerly used in biomedical research. This is where he will spend the rest of his life. Not in the laboratory’s barren enclosures, but in a sanctuary.
Nine other chimps joined Al at Chimp Haven after making the journey from the Alamogordo laboratory: Faylene, Kamaka, Olivia, BC, JD, Sherril, Tillina, Pearl and Nickel. All the remaining chimps at the lab will join them at the sanctuary later this spring.
We are thrilled that this group of chimps is settling in so well. We learned in November that all the chimps would finally be moved to Chimp Haven—a huge victory given that the National Institutes of Health had spent the previous five years insisting that they spend the rest of their lives at the lab.
We believe that the extraordinary amount of pressure put on NIH—including our winning lawsuit and the engagement of thousands of our supporters who demanded that the chimps be moved—played a major role in their decision.
It was just the latest win in a lengthy fight for chimpanzees in laboratories, which started decades ago, when we began to advocate for the elimination of their use in research and testing.
First, we pushed for the establishment of a federal sanctuary for chimps previously used in experiments. We worked as part of a coalition to help pass the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance and Protection Act (CHIMP) Act, a law that created a federal sanctuary (operated by Chimp Haven) where federal chimpanzees could live out the rest of their lives after the experiments on them had ended.
Our fight to end harmful experiments on chimps in the U.S. gathered greater momentum in 2015. At that time, in response to a federal petition we filed, captive chimpanzees, including those in labs, received full protections under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This decision effectively ended biomedical research on chimps.
Shortly afterward, NIH announced that it would transfer all federally owned and supported chimpanzees to Chimp Haven.
Since then, we have been working to ensure that these federal chimpanzees in laboratories can move to sanctuary and live out the rest of their lives in peace. This has been a struggle for 10 years, because in 2019 NIH made the shocking announcement that it would not move the remaining chimps living at Alamogordo to Chimp Haven as promised.
Outraged by this broken promise, we and more than 150,000 of our supporters demanded that the agency send the Alamogordo chimps to sanctuary.
In 2021, when NIH still refused to take positive action, we sued, arguing that NIH’s refusal to move the chimps to Chimp Haven violated the CHIMP Act. In December 2022, a federal judge agreed, finding that NIH’s 2019 decision to deny sanctuary retirement to dozens of chimpanzees was illegal.
But more foot-dragging followed, so we appealed to our supporters and again more than 135,000 of you contacted NIH, demanding that the agency move the chimpanzees to Chimp Haven as required by law. And in October we launched an advertising campaign focused on the chimps that targeted the area in Bethesda, Maryland, where the NIH campus is located. Soon after, NIH announced that it would reverse its decision and would send the remaining Alamogordo chimpanzees to Chimp Haven.
Faylene gets acquainted with the enrichment at Chimp Haven. Kierstin Luckett & Lauren Rager/Chimp Haven
While it took far too long, we are overjoyed that these chimps are finally getting to enjoy the lives they always deserved. Life for chimpanzees used in harmful experiments is anything but easy. Most were either born in a laboratory or captured from the wild as infants, forced to live their entire lives in unnatural settings and repeatedly put in physically painful and psychologically traumatic situations.
Hundreds of captive chimpanzees have thrived at the sanctuary, where specialists trained in chimpanzee behavior and medicine ensure that the chimps can enjoy many of the experiences they would have had in the wild.
According to Chimp Haven, this first group of chimps is doing well: “Al quickly stole hearts playing the cool and calm wingman to his more mischievous buddy, Kamaka. Olivia is quite the spitfire while Nickel has more of a grandmother’s temperament… We already love them and can’t wait to introduce them to more of their new life at Chimp Haven.”
Kamaka, Al’s friend, who is also starting to enjoy all that sanctuary life has to offer. Kierstin Luckett & Lauren Rager/Chimp Haven
Chimpanzees can live into their 60s; the Alamogordo chimps range in age from 34 to 62 years old. We hope that they have years of joy and comfort ahead of them at Chimp Haven. Al and his fellow chimpanzees deserve nothing less.
Kitty Block is CEO of Humane World for Animals.
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