Wildlife

Campaign to End Ape 'Slavery'

A Kenya-based wildlife conservancy launched a project aimed at protecting some of humankind’s closest relatives from a kind of enslavement.

The Project to End Great Ape Slavery (PEGAS) says the practice of “brutally capturing” and selling wild apes threatens some species with extinction.

It estimates that more than 22,000 chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans were captured from the wild between 2005 and 2011, “many to attract customers for zoos or to become pets for the rich and powerful.”

The Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which manages PEGAS, says chimps and other primate species experience the same kind of emotions as humans, meaning the type of enslavement they suffer causes them severe trauma.

“It must stop for conservation and moral reasons," Daniel Stiles of PEGAS told Agence France-Presse. “To capture one infant ape, as many as 10 apes are ruthlessly killed. ... The orphans are sold into what can only be called slavery.”

The group said that great apes are in high demand at safari parks and zoos, and from private collectors, across the Middle East and East Asia.

PEGAS says the primates are trained to perform in costume and in “silly skits,” or to beg for food from zoo visitors.