Chimpanzees share nearly 99% of their DNA with humans. Like you and me they form deep social bonds with each other, forming lifelong friendships, performing altruistic acts like watching each other’s offspring, and even mourning dead family members. Chimps have even been known to die of grief after losing a family member. 

The Wildlife Waystation has been a happy home for 32 chimpanzees, many of whom have formed deep bonds with each other for over 45 years. This is the only home, the only family, they have ever known. Separating these primates from their families would inflict unimaginable pain and suffering on the chimps, and doing so would be absolutely devastating for each and every one of them.

The federal endangered species act prevents the “take” of an endangered species, making it illegal to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect these species. Separating chimpanzees from their families would undoubtedly harm, and harass these chimps, but in California the law excludes the words “harm,” and “harass,” which would make cruelly separating these chimpanzee families completely  legal.

Chimpanzees are highly endangered, but for decades, lack of protective legislation, and another loophole in conservation legislation had kept captive chimpanzees from receiving protected status, classifying them as “threatened” instead of “endangered” and stripping them of these critical protections.   It is not uncommon that chimpanzees are illegally taken from their mothers in the wild, and sold into the pet trade to the highest buyer. The idea that this kind of action could be actually legal, in our country, under our watch is absolutely despicable. 

Please sign this petition and help raise awareness, and funds to help right these legislative wrongs, and keep these chimp families together in the only home that most of them have ever known.