Yes they do have an outside enclosure however it is roofed.
Wingham Wildlife Park Wingham Wildlife Park news 2014-2016
- Thread starter DesertRhino150
- Start date
zoogiraffe
Well-Known Member
Sorry if this sounds stupid but if something has a roof,to me its indoors so cannot be outside!!!Yes they do have an outside enclosure however it is roofed.
sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
I'll remind you of this if I'm ever sharing a beer with you on the terrace of a nice European zoo, with a canopy overhead to keep off the autumn sunshine!
zoogiraffe
Well-Known Member
I think I may have just dug myself a small hole,time to get the JCB out and keep going!!!!!
Indoors? I agree that a roof is essential, but walls matter too and there is a tiny clue in the word itself 
Alan
Alan
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Even if it has a roof its still outside! 
The Chimps have been further delayed by yet more permit problems..
Second Lawsuit Filed to Stop Transfer of Chimpanzees to 'Roadside Zoo' - Law Street (TM)
At a research facility in Atlanta, Georgia, eight chimpanzees wait in limbo–out of work with nowhere to go.
The hairy retirees–Abby, Agatha, Elvira, Faye, Fritz, Lucas, Tara, and Georgia–were slated to follow up their careers as biomedical research subjects with a life of being gawked at by tourists at the Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent, England.
But a second lawsuit was filed by the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) on Monday, delaying the transfer for the time being.
In November 2015, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) granted a permit to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta to offload the eight primates to the English zoo. USFWS withdrew the permit following a suit filed by NEAVS, an organization that fights to eliminate the use of animals as test subjects. The organization cites the zoo’s lack of accreditation, inexperience with caring for chimpanzees, and intentions of breeding as reasons for its complaint.
FWS responded by delaying the permit and extending the public comment period. Last Thursday, however, USFWS announced it would reissue the permit as early as May 1.
“In reopening it, we’re shocked that world renowned conservationists are against it, yet FWS still believes it doesn’t have to obey laws of reason or true interpretation of the language of laws,” said Dr. Theodora Capaldo, president and executive director at NEAVS and the leading plaintiff in the most recent lawsuit against USFWS.
The language of the law in this case is crucial. The Endangered Species Act, enacted in 1976, provided a boon to animals classified as “endangered,” a status that guarantees such animals will not be relegated to a life in a laboratory. Captive chimpanzees are deemed “threatened” (wild ones are considered “endangered”), allowing them to be used as subjects in biomedical and behavioral studies.
But last June, FWS Director Dan Ashe recognized the classification as a “mistake,” and initiated a move to grant all Pan troglodytes (chimpanzees) endangered status, prompting private research labs like Yerkes to quickly find a suitable home for the animals.
Before the decision to transfer the eight chimps–who constitute a fraction of Yerkes’s chimp population–five U.S. based primate sanctuaries offered to house them. Primate Rescue Center, a sanctuary in Nicholasville, Kentucky, met with top staff from Yerkes in April 2014, according to the sanctuary’s executive director, when both sides anticipated the rebranding of chimps from “threatened” to “endangered.”
The preemptive move failed when Yerkes pulled out after the sanctuary requested financial support for a plot of land in northern Georgia where they planned to house the chimps.
“It was like a punch in the gut [when Yerkes announced the zoo transfer] because nobody else was afforded to opportunity to say ‘hey wait, let’s talk about keeping these chimp in the U.S.’,” said April Truitt, Executive Director of the nonprofit Primate Rescue Center sanctuary, whose 30 acres in leafy central Kentucky is currently home to over 50 primates, including 11 chimps.
Prominent primatologists and anthropologists spoke out during the second round of public comment, which commenced in late February.
“If USFW responds to the very important achievement of treating chimpanzees as an endangered species by allowing Yerkes to offload its chimpanzees to a commercial zoo, the system will be undermined,” wrote Richard Wrangham, professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard and founder of The Kibale Chimpanzee Project.
Richard Leakey, a famed paleoanthropologist and son of legendary archeological couple Louis and Mary Leakey, also spoke out against the move in a public comment:
“As an Ambassador for the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), I am committed to ensuring the best possible future for chimpanzees around the world… I cannot find any reasons why this proposed transfer should be approved.”
Yerkes issued a statement on its website when the second round of public comment was announced:
“We remain confident in our decision to donate eight chimpanzees to WWP [Wingham Wildlife Park] in the commitment WWP is making to provide lifetime care for these animals.”
The transfer was indeed approved, largely due to a proposed donation from Yerkes and Wingham to the Population and Sustainability Network, an international nonprofit group that focuses on improving women’s health. After granting captive chimpanzees “endangered” status last June, the USFWS requires all exports of the animals to be actions “that have been shown to support or enhance survival of chimpanzees include habitat restoration and research on chimpanzees in the wild that contributes to improved management and recovery.” It seems a donation to a group that focuses on another primate–human beings–fits that description.
When the permit was initially granted to Yerkes last November, both the research facility and the zoo in Kent proposed to meet the new requirement by donating to the Kibale Chimpanzee Project and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Both turned down the donations.
The USFWS would not comment on pending litigation, according to an email sent from their Division of Public Affairs.
At least one chimpanzee advocate supports the move.
After witnessing the “wonderful extensive indoor and outdoor housing which has been purpose-built to receive chimpanzees” at Wingham, Jane Goodall commented in favor of USFWS’s decision. Goodall is one of the world’s foremost experts of chimpanzees and has studied the creatures in the forests of Tanzania for over five decades.
And while the eight chimps awaiting their fate in Atlanta declined to comment for this story, Truitt, Capaldo and a host of others who have intimate experience with the animals believe it’s simply unfair for them to endure a second life as a “commodity” at a “roadside zoo” in a foreign country. Truitt stressed that this case is about more than eight individuals, but can set a precedent that might ensure retired research chimps a future as curiosities behind a glass enclosure.
“It is about these eight chimps, but it also is about the other over 200 that are privately owned,” she said. “Just keep them here. I believe that’s what we should do.”
Second Lawsuit Filed to Stop Transfer of Chimpanzees to 'Roadside Zoo' - Law Street (TM)
At a research facility in Atlanta, Georgia, eight chimpanzees wait in limbo–out of work with nowhere to go.
The hairy retirees–Abby, Agatha, Elvira, Faye, Fritz, Lucas, Tara, and Georgia–were slated to follow up their careers as biomedical research subjects with a life of being gawked at by tourists at the Wingham Wildlife Park in Kent, England.
But a second lawsuit was filed by the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) on Monday, delaying the transfer for the time being.
In November 2015, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) granted a permit to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta to offload the eight primates to the English zoo. USFWS withdrew the permit following a suit filed by NEAVS, an organization that fights to eliminate the use of animals as test subjects. The organization cites the zoo’s lack of accreditation, inexperience with caring for chimpanzees, and intentions of breeding as reasons for its complaint.
FWS responded by delaying the permit and extending the public comment period. Last Thursday, however, USFWS announced it would reissue the permit as early as May 1.
“In reopening it, we’re shocked that world renowned conservationists are against it, yet FWS still believes it doesn’t have to obey laws of reason or true interpretation of the language of laws,” said Dr. Theodora Capaldo, president and executive director at NEAVS and the leading plaintiff in the most recent lawsuit against USFWS.
The language of the law in this case is crucial. The Endangered Species Act, enacted in 1976, provided a boon to animals classified as “endangered,” a status that guarantees such animals will not be relegated to a life in a laboratory. Captive chimpanzees are deemed “threatened” (wild ones are considered “endangered”), allowing them to be used as subjects in biomedical and behavioral studies.
But last June, FWS Director Dan Ashe recognized the classification as a “mistake,” and initiated a move to grant all Pan troglodytes (chimpanzees) endangered status, prompting private research labs like Yerkes to quickly find a suitable home for the animals.
Before the decision to transfer the eight chimps–who constitute a fraction of Yerkes’s chimp population–five U.S. based primate sanctuaries offered to house them. Primate Rescue Center, a sanctuary in Nicholasville, Kentucky, met with top staff from Yerkes in April 2014, according to the sanctuary’s executive director, when both sides anticipated the rebranding of chimps from “threatened” to “endangered.”
The preemptive move failed when Yerkes pulled out after the sanctuary requested financial support for a plot of land in northern Georgia where they planned to house the chimps.
“It was like a punch in the gut [when Yerkes announced the zoo transfer] because nobody else was afforded to opportunity to say ‘hey wait, let’s talk about keeping these chimp in the U.S.’,” said April Truitt, Executive Director of the nonprofit Primate Rescue Center sanctuary, whose 30 acres in leafy central Kentucky is currently home to over 50 primates, including 11 chimps.
Prominent primatologists and anthropologists spoke out during the second round of public comment, which commenced in late February.
“If USFW responds to the very important achievement of treating chimpanzees as an endangered species by allowing Yerkes to offload its chimpanzees to a commercial zoo, the system will be undermined,” wrote Richard Wrangham, professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard and founder of The Kibale Chimpanzee Project.
Richard Leakey, a famed paleoanthropologist and son of legendary archeological couple Louis and Mary Leakey, also spoke out against the move in a public comment:
“As an Ambassador for the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), I am committed to ensuring the best possible future for chimpanzees around the world… I cannot find any reasons why this proposed transfer should be approved.”
Yerkes issued a statement on its website when the second round of public comment was announced:
“We remain confident in our decision to donate eight chimpanzees to WWP [Wingham Wildlife Park] in the commitment WWP is making to provide lifetime care for these animals.”
The transfer was indeed approved, largely due to a proposed donation from Yerkes and Wingham to the Population and Sustainability Network, an international nonprofit group that focuses on improving women’s health. After granting captive chimpanzees “endangered” status last June, the USFWS requires all exports of the animals to be actions “that have been shown to support or enhance survival of chimpanzees include habitat restoration and research on chimpanzees in the wild that contributes to improved management and recovery.” It seems a donation to a group that focuses on another primate–human beings–fits that description.
When the permit was initially granted to Yerkes last November, both the research facility and the zoo in Kent proposed to meet the new requirement by donating to the Kibale Chimpanzee Project and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Both turned down the donations.
The USFWS would not comment on pending litigation, according to an email sent from their Division of Public Affairs.
At least one chimpanzee advocate supports the move.
After witnessing the “wonderful extensive indoor and outdoor housing which has been purpose-built to receive chimpanzees” at Wingham, Jane Goodall commented in favor of USFWS’s decision. Goodall is one of the world’s foremost experts of chimpanzees and has studied the creatures in the forests of Tanzania for over five decades.
And while the eight chimps awaiting their fate in Atlanta declined to comment for this story, Truitt, Capaldo and a host of others who have intimate experience with the animals believe it’s simply unfair for them to endure a second life as a “commodity” at a “roadside zoo” in a foreign country. Truitt stressed that this case is about more than eight individuals, but can set a precedent that might ensure retired research chimps a future as curiosities behind a glass enclosure.
“It is about these eight chimps, but it also is about the other over 200 that are privately owned,” she said. “Just keep them here. I believe that’s what we should do.”
I am not sure on this one. Did AZA and EAZA really advise against this transfer? If they did, I assume they would have had good reasons to do so.
On a sidenote, I am equally not quite sure what kind of facilities YERKES Primate Center had for their chimps.
Do you know more on that one (than I do)?
For now: I am not making a qualified judgement, as I - nor do I expect the typically agenda-ist posting from the original communicator / activism-base - to have those details. It seems for now they are the fundamentalist lot that seem to belief no primate should belong in captivity and should instead live free and fully luvey duvey in their wilds (where may survive out of humans' harms way or alternatively be happily shot or eaten up into the bushmeat trade ..).
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Unfortunately not a joke...
It seems the parties involved in this are far removed from each other-an example; the ridiculous description of Wingham as a 'roadside zoo' is so far off the mark that it testifies to that.
if this link works, here are the comments received from the public submissions over the export (it's 131 pages, 25 comments per page...)
https://www.regulations.gov/#!docke...HQ-IA-2015-0149;refD=FWS-HQ-IA-2015-0149-2840
I haven't read many of them, lots of numpties commenting - the majority are probably well-meaning but without a clue about what they are even commenting on beyond "sanctuary good, zoo bad".
https://www.regulations.gov/#!docke...HQ-IA-2015-0149;refD=FWS-HQ-IA-2015-0149-2840
I haven't read many of them, lots of numpties commenting - the majority are probably well-meaning but without a clue about what they are even commenting on beyond "sanctuary good, zoo bad".
I am ambivalent about this. I think Wingham have a good set-up for the chimps but allowing them to go there sets a precedent for all those US lab chimps to be allowed to go to any old unaccredited 'zoo'.
Whilst I resent the characterisation of Wingham as a 'roadside zoo' knowing what type of shady, inadequate establishments that designation covers and how many chimps have had extremely poor lives in them, this does bring into question where they will draw the line in future if this goes ahead.
Not knowing exactly what the deal with Wingham is I question if it does also allow the labs to get off scot free from having to finance, at a reasonable level, the future of animals they've 'used' in their business.
Whilst I resent the characterisation of Wingham as a 'roadside zoo' knowing what type of shady, inadequate establishments that designation covers and how many chimps have had extremely poor lives in them, this does bring into question where they will draw the line in future if this goes ahead.
Not knowing exactly what the deal with Wingham is I question if it does also allow the labs to get off scot free from having to finance, at a reasonable level, the future of animals they've 'used' in their business.
Isn't that what they have done- funded(or contributed to) the Wingham build?
I suppose my question is about how much cheaper it is to 'contribute' to a zoo compared to a sanctuary. Is it a real bargain option to ship them off to an unaccredited zoo.
Nobody as yet has commented on what advise has been coming from AZA or EAZA on this?
Plus: what facilities there are for the chimps at YERKES currently?
Also, are these all or some of them wildcaught and/or subspecifics or hybrids?
Plus: what facilities there are for the chimps at YERKES currently?
Also, are these all or some of them wildcaught and/or subspecifics or hybrids?
Here is another article. I find it shocking (though I should not be) that activists would not want them transferred from a laboratory to a better home.
Battle Intensifies To Keep US Lab Chimps Out Of UK Zoo | WBUR's The Wild Life
Battle Intensifies To Keep US Lab Chimps Out Of UK Zoo | WBUR's The Wild Life
it is more that they want the chimps to go to a sanctuary in the USA. Those are the two important points. Sanctuary versus zoo, and USA versus "a foreign country" (as I read in one article). They are focussing on some specific things like Wingham "not being accredited" because Americans (including some on this forum who should know better) have this thing where a zoo not being accredited by a zoo body means it is therefore undoubtably some animal-torturing hell-pit. The use of "roadside zoo" in many articles exemplifies this.
I don't really have an opinion on where the chimps should go, but YERKES is quite right when they say that there are a few hundred chimps they need to re-home and they can't all just be off-loaded onto "sanctuaries".
I'd be interested too. It is a repeated comment in the articles that the move has been opposed by the AZA, EAZA and BIAZA amongst others. But what have they said? Why do they even care if Wingham isn't in either the EAZA or BIAZA? Is it a case of the activists mis-using comments made? Or have they actually opposed it?Kifau Bwana said:
Maybe the chimp EEP wants Yerkes to solve (and pay) their own "problems", instead of sending their hybrids to Europe, while there are many chimps in Europe that could/should benefit the new enclosure of Wingham?