Vanilla, a 28-year-old chimpanzee, had never been outside of a cage or enclosure. She is one of the surviving chimps from the New York-based Laboratory for Experimental Medicine & Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). Vanilla and her sister, Shake, have a new island home at Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida.
[Video report, 44 seconds]
We can’t be locking these creatures up, man. In zoos or elsewhere. That creature has feelings, thoughts, sapience. Look at her face when she goes outside and tell me you didn’t know exactly what she was feeling, that you didn’t empathize with her.
Zoos are often a lot more enlightened these days and many do some valuable species conservation work but I know what you mean.
And yes, I can’t recall seeing a display of happiness like that other than a waggy dog when they see their owner.
A zoo in America caused a minor international incident with my country a few months back because they were posting videos of them badly mistreating our national bird. A lot of people with personal experience with that zoo came out to say that the zoo does amazing conservation work and them abusing animals for profit was totally out of character despite them having done it for at least 3 years. Even “enlightened” zoos treat animals like shit when it’d get them a decent chunk of money.
No zoo does this. She was used for animal testing.
Zoo enclosures are still really small for a sentient creature, though. Nobody would confine a 5 year old human to a space that small and call it humane.
I realize chimps and gorillas are extremely threatened in their natural habitats by humans (deforestation, poaching, etc) but I do suspect it would be better to focus resources on protecting them there instead of on keeping some in zoos.
Not that these are mutually exclusive. Obviously there are cases like this too with ex-lab or ex-exotic pet animals or injured animals that couldn’t survive in the wild - I can’t fault anyone for keeping them in zoos, when there is no alternative.
Er, yes, that was the story.
You missing some context or something?
Nup. You?
Impossible to tell.
Don’t worry, it’s the Internet; home of misunderstandings.