NIH Suspends new chimpanzee research grants

Late last year, the National Institutes of Health froze all new grants for studies involving chimpanzees after an Institute of Medicine review found little scientific necessity for using man’s closest genetic relative as a research model.

Dozens of ongoing, federally funded projects will be evaluated according to the new stringent conditions adopted by the NIH, which the IOM says are necessary to justify conducting research on chimpanzees.

This is hopefully a huge step forward in ending research on chimpanzees.

Wild Chimps Outwit Human hunters

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8962000/8962747.stm

Researchers have found male chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea successfully deactiving snares put out by hunters. This practice has not yet been seen in other chimpanzee populations.

Snares can seriously injure chimpanzees often causing them to lose limbs and can be fatal as well. The researchers are unsure how the chimpanzees learned the skill as trial and error would be almost impossible. It appears as  if the animals “knew” which parts not to touch as they explicitly avoided them.

Movie made by chimpanzees!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8472000/8472831.stm

Primatologist Betsy Herrelkobegan a project using video technology to try and discover what sorts of things chimpanzees prefer to view. A portion of the project was the give her study chimpazees a “chimp-proof” video camera and see what the result was. The movie will be aired on the BBC but you can see a portion below.

Jane Goodall on The Daily Show

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-12-2009/jane-goodall

Watch this hilarious video of Jane Goodall’s appearance on The Daily Show with John Stewart!

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Study: Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jjv7CIWEfD6SOn09KEOpv7t1DKgAD96QN3C00

Interesting study that shows chimps have the ability to plan things in advance. A captive chimpanzee named Santino is shown to collect rocks throughout the day to throw at humans across the moat. Santino breaks off weak pieces in concrete boulders and if the rock piece is too big he is shown breaking it into smaller suitable pieces. The stones were not used to attack other chimps, only human observers.

“Loving chimps to death” – Jane Goodall

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goodall25-2009feb25,0,3873665.story

This is a decent, though short, opinion piece from famed primatologist Jane Goodall. She mentions the appeal of chimpanzees as pets and attributes the wants to the portrayal of the animals in the media and entertainment industry. (i.e. the superbowl commercial with chimps in mechanic costumes) Goodall also discusses why chimps (and other wild animals) don’t make good pets as well as the fact that the animals are losing habitat at a drastic rate and their numbers being reduced by encroaching human populations.