Demand That MetLife Hold New York Blood Center Accountable for 67 Abandoned Chimps

Dear Mr. Kandarian:

Since July, 2015, advocates worldwide have contacted MetLife through emails, social media and other petitions to ask the company to be a voice for the 67 chimpanzees abandoned in Liberia and The Ivory Coast by the New York Blood Center (NYBC), an organization to which MetLife gives hundreds of thousands of dollars annually (if not more) and to which you provide retail space in your global headquarters. 

Your silence and complicity surrounding this crisis are disappointing not only because of the public’s exhaustive effort to engage you but also because of MetLife’s public commitment to “corporate responsibility” and “protecting the environment.”

The community is not asking MetLife to rescue the abandoned chimps. Nor are we asking you to contribute financially to the victims’ care, as Citigroup has done. We are merely asking MetLife, NYBC’s largest and most prominent corporate donor, to exert your influence over NYBC on behalf of the 64 survivors for whom the organization promised to provide lifelong care. 

NYBC created the captive chimp populations and is attempting to extricate itself from its ethical obligation to pay for their care by shifting the burden to animal welfare organizations. NYBC has earned an estimated $500 million in royalties off of their chimpanzee research and, unlike animal welfare organizations that did not create this crisis, has the resources to provide the survivors with food and water.

In mid-April a great ape rescue group visited Ponso, the sole survivor of a colony of 20 chimps abandoned by NYBC on an island in The Ivory Coast. Ponso’s female companion and their two children died in a two day period in 2013, leaving him all alone. Germain, a local farmer (pictured below) who brings him food, said that he watched Ponso bury his family by tossing dirt over their graves. Ponso has watched his entire colony of chimpanzees die of sickness and starvation. Now, this intelligent, social animal is alone and struggling to survive — mentally and physically. 

NYBC researchers acquired Ponso when he was a baby and stripped him of his freedom, health and safety. And, when they no longer needed his body, they left him to die. Please do not continue to turn a blind eye to the New York Blood Center's recklessness and abject cruelty. Take action now for the surviving victims.