(From previous page)

Each year approximately 25,000 wild primates are imported to the United States of America - 98% going to vivisection laboratories.  Seven regional primate centres hold a total of 13,152 primates.  Other agencies such as the US Department of Defense and pharmaceutical companies perform primate experiments.  Many primates are permanently held in terrible devices called "restraint chairs".  Thousands are killed in cruel and repetitive experiments - the survivors being "recycled" like old bottles into other projects:

Other primates are subjected to confinement in tiny isolation cages. The U.S. federal cage-size for Rhesus monkeys is 2ft by 2ft by 30" high and for gorillas 5ft by 5ft by 7ft high.

Other major primate-user countries include - Japan, the Soviet Union, France, West Germany, Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Ham Dies

Ham, the first chimpanzee to go into space, died in January 1983 at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, North Carolina. Ham was in his late 20s. He was caught in Africa as an infant and sold by a U.S. importer to the Air Force. After a brutal training involving electric shock "conditioning", he made a suborbital space flight in 1961, nearly drowning on his return to Earth. In 1963, he was retired from the space program as he was getting too large to handle. Ham was sent to the Washington National Zoo where he lived in isolation in a small cage for most of his 17 years there, being gawked at by the curious and with nothing to do to use his intelligence and dexterity.

In September 1981, after these seventeen years of "cruel and unusual punishment", Ham was sent to the North Carolina Zoo which has a large chimpanzee habitat and many caring staff. Things looked rosy for Ham: he was introduced to two delightful female chimpanzees and got along well with them. He enjoyed sun-bathing. Unfortunately, Ham's new life only lasted 1 1/2 years before his untimely death of unknown causes. However, apart from the few months he lived with his mother, his few months in North Carolina were certainly the happiest of Ham's life.
(International Primate Protection League)