Chimpanzees Opening Doors for all Cognitively Complex Animals
This is such a beautifully touching story that demonstrates, once again, that animals are equally intelligent and complex feeling beings and souls just like us…only walking in different chosen bodies.
Read the story about Washoe, a Chimpanzee who was taught sign language here:
She Told The Chimp She Had Lost Her Baby. What The Chimp Did Next Was Unexpected.
For those of you who don’t know it, there is a precedent-setting Supreme Court case currently being litigated that has the potential of granting legal rights to two Chimpanzees – Hercules and Leo – imprisoned at Stony Brook University in New York, as legal persons for the first time.
This legal-personhood case that the Nonhuman Rights Project brought to light, has been ongoing since 2013 including two other Chimpanzees held at a private property.
As a recent April 21, 2015 article by David Grimm states:
“The ruling marks the first time in U.S. history that an animal has been covered by a writ of habeas corpus, which typically allows human prisoners to challenge their detention. The judicial action could force the university, which is believed to be holding the chimps, to release the primates, and could sway additional judges to do the same with other research animals.
‘This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: the right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals,” says Natalie Prosin, the executive director of the animal rights organization, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), that filed the case. “We got our foot in the door. And no matter what happens, that door can never be completely shut again.’ “
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Posted on July 7, 2015, in Uncategorized and tagged chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, Nonhuman Rights Project, sign language for animals, Washoe chimpanzee. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
This is so great. I used to work with baby chimpanzees. I was a nursery technician. We got them as infants and had them until they were full grown – about age 3. They were just like human children, only learned a little faster until maybe 2. Then I figured out that they were just using us to make them lovable and handleable so that they could do horrendous things to them. I don’t know why I didn’t understand that at first…I mean…it was a lab…duh. I was young and naive, and just wanted to work with chimps. This was in the early 70s. When I found out what they were doing, of course I had to leave, but I have never forgotten any of those kids. I loved them dearly. It has haunted me all these years. I am grateful that they are seeing now that they deserve better, but man! What they went through. They were tortured. Still makes me cry.
thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey mary…wonderful to know more about you and what you’ve experienced. i understand how you must have felt and i hope you know that they hold nothing towards you for this experience. you were just loving them. you are so beautiful and all of these things we go through are simply threads to the tapestry of life experience. much love and warm hugs to you dear soul <3
Thank you. I do know they don’t hold it against me. They knew only love from me. Just the thought of what they went through. Then, a year or two ago, they started showing clips of what they did to them on tv. It really brought it up for me. the images were horrifying. It was for a good cause – to get them freed, but very hard to see. You are a dear dear soul, Tania.<3
Yeah that’s tough on the human heart, especially when one is so sensitive. It’s always challenging to embrace the divine experience and purpose when things don’t feel so divine to our hearts. Xoox