The same organizations that intimated US Fish and Wildlife Service to change, definitely, the conservation status of chimpanzees in United States insist again on a position, because the Government had given the date of January 30 to give a final answer and nothing was decided.

This time the arguments were sent to the Government with opinions of specialists and a list of more than 50 thousand signatures of people who defend nature, pointing that the use of chimpanzees in medical experimentation had no success to cure or prevent diseases in humans.

A few years ago, US Fish and Wildlife Service, attending a request form NIH – which aimed to use as many chimpanzees as possible in medical experimentation – classified chimpanzees who were born in captivity differently from the ones born in Africa, as if they were different species. They practically created a kind of chimpanzee species born in USA, which were not endangered and facing extinction, so they could be used in shows, medical experiments and could also be sold.

According to primatologist Jane Goodall, “The commercial exploitation of Pan troglodytes contributed to the decline of the species, no matter the origin of the primate, born in the wild or in captivity”. The conversion of chimpanzees in only one species in terms of conservation status would help a lot their protection, both for the ones in captivity and the ones in the wild.

PASA – Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance sent a new request to US Government and in this document there are the final conclusions of National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM), which affirms that there is no need to keep using chimpanzees in medical experiments, as long as they do not give the results expected. See more about this conclusion here.

North-American society are getting aware that the preservation of great apes is defended by the majority of the citizens, not to mention that people agree that their commercial use is a disrespect with hundreds of innocent beings who were abused with no mercy in labs in the last 70 years.

Related news (to undersand the change from “endangered species” to “threatened”): https://www.projetogap.org.br/en-US/noticias/Show/3968,north-american-chimpanzees-a-crime