The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently holding over 40 chimpanzees at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Bastrop, Texas. Despite living their lives imprisoned in a lab thus far, these intelligent and social beings remain confined without plans for relocation to a sanctuary.
We urge the Director of the NIH to take immediate action to release these chimpanzees and ensure they are relocated to a sanctuary where they can live out the rest of their lives in peace and dignity. These animals deserve more than a life of imprisonment.
Sign this petition to make your voice heard!
Dear Director Bertagnolli,
I am writing both to express gratitude and plead for your further action: at the same time that I extend sincere thanks to you for agreeing to release the Alamogordo Primate Facility's chimpanzees to sanctuary, I implore you to do the same for the chimpanzees being held by the NIH at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Bastrop, Texas.
In 2017, the NIH announced its formal retirement plan for chimpanzees and the MD Anderson Cancer Center predicted to Science Magazine that most of its chimpanzees would enter sanctuary within a decade; yet, today, it is reported that over 40 chimpanzees remain imprisoned at the Center without plans for relocation. Moreover, many of the reasons put forth for their continued imprisonment mirror those that were previously used to deny the Alamogordo chimpanzees sanctuary – namely, purported concerns over their age and health; also similarly, the denial of sanctuary is to the financial disadvantage of taxpayers (your funders): as of October 2024, the NIH reported that it costs the NIH $22.55 more (per animal per day) to maintain the chimpanzees at the Center than it would cost to send them to sanctuary.
Ethical imperatives and sound financial stewardship coincide here, and I ask that the MD Anderson Cancer Center's chimpanzees closely follow those leaving Alamogordo – I ask that you take swift action to ensure that all chimpanzees subject to the NIH's control realize sanctuary.
