A communication of GAP Project Spain published in several news agencies, alerts that 80% of Spanish zoos keep chimpanzees in “bad conditions” and five of them are imprisoned in cages in private houses with no kind of control.

The alert informs that the majority of the enclosure has concrete floors, with glasses that put the chimpanzees to close to the people, enabling them of their own privacy and allowing constant public harassment. These conditions cause “loneliness and boredom” and stress, which impact the mental serenity of the chimpanzees.

Director of GAP Spain, Pedro Pozas Terrados, spoke against the situation of several chimpanzees in a private zoo in Murcia and in a recycle industry, which has no protection at all and where a chimpanzee has already died due to extreme cold.

In order to sustain the need that the Spanish government, according to the recommendations of the Parliament made in a resolution in 2008, build a sanctuary to host every chimpanzee who live under precarious conditions, it is presented a research work signed by two Brazilians callled “Chimpancés en Cautiverio” (Chimpanzees in captivity).

The work developed by biologist Luiz Fernando Leal Padulla, who works at GAP Sanctuary in Sorocaba, and Dr. Thais Leiroz Codenotti, from CONVIDAS Association, shows the differences between chimpanzees that live in sanctuaries, with a good entertainment area, and chimpanzees who live in cages in zoos.

In the communication, GAP Project Spain demands that a Great Primates Protection Law to be implemented in Europe and in the world, so that it would be not necessary to order a Habeas Corpus to every chimpanzee imprisoned all over the world.

Related news (in Spanish):

http://www.europapress.es/epsocial/ong-y-asociaciones/noticia-80-zoologicos-espanoles-mantienen-chimpances-malas-condiciones-proyecto-gran-simio-20100314121301.html

Dr. Pedro A Ynterian
President, GAP Project International