Next Tuesday, 9/5, tell Rep. Stansbury you want to move all of the surviving chimpanzees from Holloman Air Force Base to Chimp Haven sanctuary

Will You Speak Up for the Surviving Chimps Still Held at Holloman Air Force Base?

  Friend, 

This month, during the Congressional recess, many members of Congress are holding public meetings with constituents to hear what you think. Specifically, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) is holding a “Coffee with your Congresswoman” event/town hall in your area (District 1).

Rep. Stansbury has been a champion for New Mexico’s forgotten chimps for as long as she’s been serving New Mexicans, both as a member of the NM House of Representatives in the past, and now in the U.S. House of Representatives for New Mexico. See her speak about her dedication to the chimps here. 

Rep. Stansbury has led a bicameral, bipartisan letter calling on the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to facilitate the transfer of the surviving 29 chimpanzees to Chimp Haven sanctuary and held follow-up conversations with the Director of Research and other staff at the NIH. She also co-sponsored the Chimp Sanctuary Act (S 3613) to require the transfer of the Alamogordo chimpanzees living in a laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base to Chimp Haven, a lush 200-acre sanctuary. Her help has been tremendous, but the chimps are still stuck in limbo.

Take Action

Please plan to attend the event below, where you can thank the Congresswoman in person for her leadership to date and ask her to help us persuade NIH to follow federal law (see the press release here for more about that) and move all of the surviving chimpanzees from Holloman Air Force Base to Chimp Haven sanctuary (see Talking Points below).

"Coffee with your Congresswoman" Event
with Representative Melanie Stansbury

Tuesday Sept. 5
3:30pm – 4:30pm
Fort Sumner Public Library
235 Sumner Ave, Fort Sumner, NM 88119

Can’t attend? Call Rep. Stansbury’s office with the same message of thanks and a request for continued help: (505) 346-6781

Only at Chimp Haven sanctuary can every chimpanzee live out the remainder of their lives in peace, receiving the care they need, in the company of their friends.

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to speak up for the chimps. These survivors are depending on all our continued effort and we will not give up the fight to get them all to sanctuary.

Talking Points

1. In 2015, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) publicly announced that it was ending experiments on chimpanzees and moving all of the chimps it ‘owns’ to the federal chimp sanctuary, Chimp Haven, in Louisiana. Unfortunately for about 29 chimpanzees remaining at Holloman Air Force Base, the promise of sanctuary has not materialized.
2. In 2019, NIH revoked its 2015 promise to transfer these remaining chimps to sanctuary. NIH did this despite its own previous estimation that some of the chimpanzees would potentially live until 2048.
   1. This could mean at least another 25 years of prison life for these chimpanzees, instead of sanctuary life where they can socialize with other chimpanzees, enjoy fresh air, and receive superior veterinary and behavioral care.

3. The CHIMP Act mandates all federally owned chimpanzees who are no longer needed for experiments be retired to sanctuary. Congress, in passing the law, recognized our nation’s moral responsibility to provide lifetime care for these chimps in the best possible environment. By not retiring these chimpanzees to sanctuary, the NIH is not just deserting this moral responsibility, it is violating the law.
4. Tax-payer’s dollars are being wasted. In fact, it costs taxpayers $118.72 per chimp/per day to live on Holloman Air Force Base vs. $49.12 per chimp/per day to live at Chimp Haven. [These figures are based on the most recently available information]. The federal government is wasting almost ¾ of a million dollars every year by housing chimps in prison-like conditions on Holloman Air Force Base, in violation of federal law, and against the wishes of the American people.
5. NIH is hiding behind a flawed assessment of risks when we already know hundreds of chimpanzees have experienced a wide range of benefits by moving to sanctuary, including more space, chimp friends, and a wide variety of enrichment activities. At Holloman Air Force Base, the chimps’ quality of life is poor, and we owe it to them to give them a chance to live better lives in a true sanctuary versus a laboratory setting.

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to speak up for the chimps. These survivors are depending on all of our continued efforts and we will not give up the fight to get them all to sanctuary.