Chimpanzee death leads to call for end to primate pet trade
February 2009

Travis has made more headlines in his death than in his time as an actor where he appeared in a TV pilot with Michael Moore and Sheryl Crow as well as commercials for Coca-Cola and Old Navy.

It was when Travis turned on two elderly ladies this week and was stabbed repeatedly before finally succumbing to a police officer's bullet that he really became famous. A "drug-fuelled frenzy" was how The Times described it.

But this is no usual celebrity freak-out story. Travis was only 15 years old. He was also a chimpanzee. After his TV career he was kept as a pet in a Connecticut home where he was dressed in human clothes, drank wine and went for rides in his 'owners' car. And when he got too excited, a dose of the antianxiety drug Xanax was given in his tea.

This was probably all fun for the people around him who gained amusement from how 'human' Travis seemed, but he was really just a timebomb waiting to go off.

Travis isn't the only one. The use of chimps and other primates in entertainment, as pets, in circuses or for use in commercials and films, is inevitably going to lead to serious incidents such as this. This isn't the first incident and it certainly won't be the last.

Wild animals are just that - wild animals. Whether snatched from the wild or bred in captivity, they have the desire to do what their free-living cousins do - living in large family groups, foraging for food and finding mates. Captivity is no real replacement for a natural wild life. Good sanctuaries try hard to provide for as many of the physical and behavioural needs as possible; a private home, TV studio or circus can't even begin to try.

Primates kept as pets, including smaller species such as marmosets and capuchins in the UK, are kept isolated from companions of their own species, fed inappropriate diets leading to health problems and raised in such inadequate conditions that they end up with severe behavioural problems and injure themselves or humans.

The TV and advertising industries are notorious for the way they treat apes, removing animals from their mothers at a few months old to be trained. An investigation into a major US chimpanzee trainer found baby chimps being kicked in the face and struck with broom handles and metal objects. All to make them perform on cue.

At a few years old, too big and strong to handle for TV use, the offcasts are sold off, often living their remaining years as pets or in roadside zoos.

With so much cruelty involved, it's no surprise that many of the best known primatologists, including Jane Goodall and Roger and Deborah Fouts, oppose the use of apes in this form of entertainment.

The Captive Animals' Protection Society (CAPS) co-ordinates campaigns against primate use in TV and ads on behalf of the Ape Alliance, a forum of primate conservation and protection organisations. This campaign receives the backing of primate experts from around the world.

We have succeeded in persuading a number of companies to either pull commercials featuring captive apes or agree not to use them again in the future. Yet this cruelty is not a thing of the past: last years Wachowski Brothers film Speed Racer was given an 'Unacceptable' rating because a chimpanzee was hit by a trainer on set.

Using animals for our entertainment damages conservation as well as individual animals. A study published in the journal Science last year concluded: "The inappropriate portrayal of great apes in advertisements undermines the scientific, welfare and conservation goals" that many organisations work hard to achieve. It found that 34% of people questioned did not realise chimps were endangered, with many basing this belief on the media use of chimps and seeing them as pets.

Wild animals are not here to amuse us as pets or in TV shows or circuses. Taking them away from their real families and training them to perform will always end in tragedy, whether for the animals or for the people they finally hit out at.