A few days ago executive director of GAP Project Spain, Pedro Pozas Terrados, pointed in a conference in Paris the problem of the politics of zoos in European Community, because of the constant exchange of great primates with no respect at all for the family bonds of these individuals.

One year ago GAP Project Spain had also denounced a deal that was being made to transfer a baby orangutan from a Spanish zoo to Monkey World, at United Kingdom, which is a private zoo, taking the baby out of his biological mother probably for non-ethical reasons.

Now a tragedy happened in London zoo, where the great primates live in very small enclosures. The team of the zoo tried to introduce a seven-month-old baby gorilla and his mother in a group that was already formed, maybe to save space in enclosures, which happens all the time. The baby and his mother were attacked and he did not resist and died, for the lack of responsibility of the professionals who manage the zoo.

In the beginning of GAP Sanctuary in Sorocaba we received two chimpanzees from Netherlands: Simon (Sam) and Rakker. Both were raised together since they were babies and as long as the zoo of that country did not have free enclosures, it was tried the introduction of the two of them in a group of adult chimpanzees. Sam had been accepted, but Rakker no. He had been seriously attacked and almost died. He was submitted to a lot of reconstruction surgeries and until today he is traumatized for what had happened. Rakker is afraid all chimpanzees but Sam, who was together with him from Netherlands to Brazil and lives with him.

In general, zoo managers, both in Europe and here, do not care about the family bonds among the population of animals kept in the zoos. In the case of chimpanzees and in our work of their defense, we were able to check how the babies used to be robbed of the zoos and sent to poachers, circuses or other zoos, with no moral or limits. The practice in Brazilian zoos, and possibly in other countries where the trafficking is intense, is not to register births or emit fake death certificates, so the babies can be sold for those who want to pay a lot of money for them. This does not happen anymore in our country, but it is not finished on the world. Just like the lack of responsibility of zoo managers is not vanished and they continue to play “God” and to break family bonds of great primates, to fulfill financial needs.

The crime that happened in London zoo last week must be an alert to the society to ban this non-human politics practiced against naive beings, who are pulled away their familiar environment with no pity, and which sometimes results in tragedy, like this case of the bay gorilla who got killed.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International

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