Archive for the ‘Apes in Entertainment’ Category

Change the Channel for Chimps

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

As most of you probably know by now, the company CareerBuilder will be airing a commercial during the Super Bowl that uses live chimpanzees. It’s nothing new, really – CareerBuilder started using chimpanzees for commercials several years ago. Unlike more progressively-minded companies (like Dodge and Pfizer), CareerBuilder has never responded to members of the public, celebrities and experts who have sent them information about why non-human great apes should not be used in entertainment.

The protests over the use of chimpanzees in the CareerBuilder commercial have garnered more attention this year than ever before. Steve Ross of the Lincoln Park Zoo has been quoted and interviewed numerous times in print and on television and the Jane Goodall Institute released a petition yesterday.

There is also a petition on care.org started by Dawn Forsythe who runs the blog Chimp Trainer’s Daughter and the Facebook page Year of the Chimpanzee.

We at the sanctuary are concentrating on also supporting the suggestion started by fellow sanctuary director Jen Feuerstein at Save the Chimps. She is asking people to Change the Channel for Chimps and began a Facebook event for people to do just that – change the channel when the CareerBuilder ad comes on during the Super Bowl. CareerBuilder spent $3.5 million on that 30 second commercial, and perhaps the best thing we can do is refuse to watch it.

So, be sure to share the message to Change the Channel for Chimps through Facebook, Twitter (you can RT our tweets), and your email lists.

Let’s do what we can to make this the last commercial with chimpanzees that CareerBuilder makes.

Jamie, Burrito and probably Jody were all used in entertainment before being sold into research. Sarah, CSNW’s ED, went undercover at a chimp training compound several years ago. It’s both a personal issue for us at the sanctuary and an important part of our mission to educate others about the abuse that happens to chimpanzees. We as humans who care have to speak up for them.

If you haven’t already, please also join our advocacy branch Primate Patrol.

 

Primate Patrol logo

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Posted in Apes in Entertainment, News | 4 Comments »

Primate Patrol alert – Capital One

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Join Primate Patrol: www.primatepatrol.org/join

 

Capital One exploits chimpanzees (again!)

Primate Patrol has received the disappointing news that Capital One is currently running a commercial featuring a young chimpanzee “actor.” This is NOT the first time Capital One has had a chimpanzee in their advertising. Despite a growing public awareness about the ethical problems with using chimpanzee “actors” in entertainment, Capital One still chose to make another chimpanzee commercial.

Please send a polite letter to Capital One asking them not to air this commercial. Your letters can make a difference – just this year, two large companies, Dodge and Pfizer, chose to alter their commercials that featured live ape “actors” and pledged to never use primates in advertising again after hearing from concerned advocates.

Let them know that chimpanzees cannot be trained for entertainment by positive reinforcement alone, and brutal training practices in the entertainment industry are well documented. Remind them that in addition to welfare concerns, using chimpanzees in the media seriously hinders conservation efforts of free-living chimpanzees.

You may send your letter to the CEO of Capital One, Richard Fairbank at richard.fairbank@capitalone.com

You can also view this alert on PETA’s action webpage.

Sample Letter to Capital One:

[Date]
Dear Mr. Fairbank:

I was extremely disappointed to hear that Capital One has chosen to air a commercial featuring a young chimpanzee. You should know that great apes used in entertainment are torn away from their mothers as infants, often repeatedly beaten during training, and then discarded when they become too strong to be managed.

Using a chimpanzee for a cheap laugh sends the message that these amazing beings are simply props. Surely you are aware that chimpanzees are endangered species in critical need of protection? You are exploiting chimpanzees for your own profits and this is an unacceptable business practice.

Please make the compassionate decision to remove the commercial from the air, and please consider to never exploit great apes for entertainment purposes again. Thank you for your consideration of my comments on this urgent matter.

Sincerely,
[Your name here]
[Your city & state]

If you send an e-mail to Capital One, please remember to BCC Primate Patrol at PrimatePatrol@ChimpSanctuaryNW.org for tracking purposes. Thank you!

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Posted in Alerts, Apes in Entertainment, Primate Patrol | 3 Comments »

CareerBuilder Super Bowl Commercial

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Join our Primate Patrol list to receive future action alerts and be sure to “like” the Primate Patrol page on Facebook.

Colin Redmon recently designed a new logo for Primate Patrol -

Primate Patrol logo

The alert copied below was originally posted on the Primate Patrol website December 14, 2010:

Primate Patrol has received the disappointing news that CareerBuilder plans to air another commercial during the 2011 Super Bowl featuring chimpanzees. CareerBuilder has already aired commercials in 2005 and 2006 that portrayed chimpanzees as misbehaving office employees. Despite a growing public awareness about the ethical problems with using chimpanzee “actors” in entertainment, CareerBuilder still plans on airing this new commercial.

Please send a polite letter to CareerBuilder asking them not to air this commercial. Your letters can make a difference – just this year, two large companies, Dodge and Pfizer, chose to alter their commercials that featured live ape “actors” and pledged to never use primates in advertising again after hearing from concerned advocates.

Let them know that chimpanzees cannot be trained for entertainment by positive reinforcement alone, and brutal training practices in the entertainment industry are well documented. Remind them that in addition to welfare concerns, using chimpanzees in the media seriously hinders conservation efforts of free-living chimpanzees.

You may send your letter to the CEO of CareerBuilder, Matt Ferguson at matt.ferguson@careerbuilder.com

You can also view this alert on PETA’s action webpage.

_______

See also an alert sent out this week about a poll for the “Super Bowl Favorite Simian Spot.” You can comment on the poll’s page and add your vote for the sock monkey commercial (#6), which did not exploit any primates.

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Posted in Apes in Entertainment, Primate Patrol | 1 Comment »

chimpanzees still in labs

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

The King 5 coverage last night mentioned the chimpanzees who are still in laboratories. Chimpanzees whose lives, like the Cle Elum Seven, could also remarkably improve if H.R. 1326, the Great Ape Protection Act (GAPA), is passed.

Sometimes it seems the barriers to this actually happening are insurmountable – the opposition to the bill by some in the biomedical research community; the funds that would be needed to create space and quality care for the chimpanzees in sanctuaries; and the inherent politics of getting a bill passed that have nothing to do with those 600 chimpanzee lives (and the other 500 who are privately owned and would no longer be tested on).

But then I think about other countries that have passed similar legislation, the bipartisan support that the bill has within the house, and the tremendous determination of those working on the legislation.

And I think about those 1100 chimpanzees. Many of them have very similar experiences as the Cle Elum Seven. Like Negra, Annie and Jody, many were taken from their native home of Africa as infants and may have never experienced what it feels like to be comfortable and safe. Some, like Foxie and Missy, were likely born into captivity for the purpose of being biomedical test subjects and, like Foxie, may never be able to learn natural chimpanzee behaviors like nest-building. Others, like Jamie and Burrito, were former “pets” or “entertainers,” possibly raised as substitute human children, abused by their trainers, then sold into biomedical research.

Those mostly unknown 1100 chimpanzees deserve sanctuary life as much as the seven chimpanzees in our care.  Their intelligence and individual personalities should be shared and appreciated. Whatever happens, they will always live in captivity, but they should have a second chance for a better life.

Look at Negra in the photos below – the first taken before her new life began, during her dark years of living in a basement with little mental stimulation, the second taken just days ago as she peacefully napped outside. And re-watch this video of Negra playing with Missy: http://www.chimpsanctuarynw.org/blog/2009/11/negra-5/

Then check out the links below the photos about GAPA to learn how you can help create a better life for all of the Negras still in laboratories.

Negra sleeping with blanket

Learn more about the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) and how you can help from these groups:

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Humane Society of the United States

Project R&R

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Posted in Apes in Entertainment, Burrito, Great Ape Protection Act, Jamie, Jody, Missy, Negra, Sanctuary | 8 Comments »

Primate Awareness Week

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

This week at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, the recently formed student group called PAN (Primate Awareness Network) is hosting Primate Awareness Week. They have a variety of speakers from the primate community speaking about issues in conservation and captivity, including CSNW’s own Sarah Baeckler and JB Mulcahy. Sarah will be discussing her experiences working undercover at a Hollywood entertainment training facility and JB will tell the story of the Cle Elum Seven. If you are in the area, you should check it out!

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Posted in Alerts, Apes in Entertainment, Events, Sanctuary | 2 Comments »

Remembering Travis and the nature of chimpanzees

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

One year ago today Travis, a “pet” chimpanzee in Connecticut mauled a woman named Charla Nash and was later fatally shot by police. It was a tragedy that J.B. eloquently wrote about in this blog post: The True Nature of Chimpanzees.

Just a few days ago, a volunteer at a facility in Florida was attacked by a young chimpanzee. Best known  as Chimp Farm, the facility operated as a roadside attraction for decades and was famous for chimpanzees trained to box with humans.  Chimp Farm was shut down by the USDA in 1999. After making improvements to the housing for the animals, and putting the days of boxing chimpanzees behind them, they reopened a few years ago as Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. Though it’s difficult to parse out the facts from all of the media coverage about the attack, it does seem clear that the chimpanzee, Shawn, escaped her enclosure because those working that day, including the woman who was attacked, did not properly secure and double check the enclosure. In a statement to the press, the volunteer stressed how important it is to follow proper procedure so that escapes do not occur due to human error.

It can be frustrating that these are the stories about chimpanzees that seem to catch the attention of the major media, while there are so many positive stories out there. Chimpanzees are being migrated from a former laboratory to the Save the Chimps sanctuary islands. The Center of Great Apes is expanding  to rescue more chimpanzees. And Foxie at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is rubbing her toes together and kissing a troll doll as construction is completed on the chimps “greenhouse.”  But we can try to take advantage of the brief and sensationalized focus on chimp attacks to educate others.

The bottom line is that chimpanzees really do not belong in captivity. That is where the tragedy begins. At CSNW we do our best to provide the chimpanzees with a rich and varied life, but it’s not the life they should be living. The deserve to be swinging from the trees, traveling miles foraging for food, living in large social groups, and making nests out of branches. For so many reasons, they can’t live in the wild, so we’ll continue to provide them the best care possible. And we will always keep in mind J.B.’s words: “if we truly love them [chimpanzees], we need to treat them with the respect they deserve, and that includes respect for their complex nature….they are not meant for our world, any more than we are meant for theirs.”

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Posted in Apes in Entertainment, Sanctuary | 4 Comments »

Newly designed Primate Patrol site! + great post about chimps in entertainment.

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Clocktower Media, Seattle’s leading web design agency, has done it again! First, they redesigned our main website, and yesterday they just completed the redesign of our Primate Patrol site!

Primate Patrol is a program of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest committed to end the use of great apes in entertainment. Now that our site has an updated look and is integrated with the sanctuary website (it’s under “How You Can Help” on the navigation of our main website), we’ll be updating information and getting more alerts out.

The redesign coincided with an excellent blog posted yesterday by Patrick Battuello about the use of chimpanzees in entertainment aptly titled Shame. Rather than quoting from the post, I encourage you to read it in full here. Thank you, Patrick, for taking the time to write about this subject. And thank all of you for writing letters to producers and directors who have used chimpanzees trained for the entertainment industry. Many people simply need to be informed.

And a big thank you to Clocktower Media for the donated design services. Thanks to you, we’re reaching more people!

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Posted in Apes in Entertainment, News | 5 Comments »