IDA Alert: Help a Chimpanzee for the Holidays!

November 26, 2002

IDA Action Alert: November 26, 2002

Contact: Suzanne Roy, 415/898-2720

Help a Chimpanzee for the Holidays!

Animal advocates have much to celebrate this holiday season with the unprecedented retirement of 266 chimpanzees and 61 monkeys from research at the now-defunct Coulston Foundation in Alamogordo, NM. Under Coulston, the chimps lived in barren concrete cells, the monkeys in tiny steel boxes. Under the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care (CCCC), which bought out the lab in September, the primates receive fresh produce three times a day and have toys, blankets, snacks and other diversions to make their lives more comfortable. Eventually, the Center plans to move all of the chimpanzees to islands at its 200-acre Ft. Pierce, Florida, sanctuary. The monkeys will be retired to a sanctuary in Texas. The immediate goal, however, is to make their lives as comfortable as possible while the transition takes place.

In Defense of Animals is launching a national Holiday Drive for the Chimpanzees. Organizations are urged to get their members involved by dropping off needed items at designated drop off centers where the gifts can be collected and shipped to Alamogordo.

WHAT’ S NEEDED RIGHT NOW:

Monetary Donations – Checks made out to the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care. All donations will be matched by the Arcus Foundation.

Blankets – the chimps make nests out of these. Light to medium weight for quick-drying, please. Tip: Be sure to ask any hotels, motels, hospitals or Red Cross offices in your area about donating blankets; they routinely dispose of linens after a certain period of time.

Toys- Little tyke toys are the best, but any sturdy plastic toy that has no removable small parts and is appropriate for a three or four year old is fine.

Mirrors that don’t break

Hair brushes and tooth brushes

Magazines with lots of pictures and children’s books

Snacks- packaged nuts in shells, oatmeal, grits, raisins, cheerios (nothing sugary or salty).

Boxes of all sizes. Toys and treats are wrapped in several boxes, adding more enrichment to the item. Really large refrigerator boxes are used as playhouses for the chimps.

Astroturf Doormats or sections of Astroturf and PVC piping for making treat boards and tubes that the chimps have to work at to get their treats, thus keeping their minds occupied.

Donations and items for the drive can be sent to The Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care

1300 LaVelle Road. Alamogordo, NM 88310. For more info on the chimps and the Coulston saga, see http://www.savethechimps.org and http://www.vivisectioninfo.org/Coulston/totalvictory/. "Live in peace with the animals. Animals bring love to our hearts, and warmth to our souls."

Colleen Klaum

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." Immanuel Kant

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