Help All Chimpanzees By Writing To Senator Cantwell About The Great Ape Portection Act and the USDA To Enforce Animal Welfare!

Ask Senator Maria Cantwell to support the Great Ape Protection Act
Please contact Senator Maria Cantwell, and ask her to show her support of the Great Ape Protection Act, H.R. 1326,  by leading on a Senate version of the bill.
Thanks to supporters like you across the country, the bill – currently in the House Energy and Commerce Committee – has over 120 cosponsors to date. Your voice as a constituent is key to the bill’s success.
Suggested email text: Dear Senator Cantwell,
As your constituent, I am writing to ask for your leadership on a Senate version of the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326). This legislation will end invasive research on chimpanzees, retire all federally-owned chimpanzees to sanctuary, and codify NIH’s administrative ban on federal funding for breeding chimpanzees.
About 1,000 chimpanzees live at great tax payer expense in eight labs. The vast majority are not in active research, but instead are languishing in these facilities. Chimpanzees are extremely expensive to maintain in a lab.  A full 71% of the American public believes that those who have spent 10 years or more should be retired to sanctuary. It is estimated that nearly $200 million taxpayer dollars will be saved through this legislation as it phases out of the use of chimpanzees in invasive research and transfers them to sanctuary retirement, including our federal chimpanzee sanctuary.
The Great Ape Protection Act is a long over-due, common-sense reform that will: protect our closest genetic relatives from physical and psychological harm; stop the fleecing of American taxpayers who pay for their substandard laboratory maintenance and care; and allow precious NIH dollars to be reallocated to more productive areas of research that can truly benefit humans. This issue is very important to me. I would be very grateful for your leadership on this critical legislation. Thank you
The Great Ape Protection Act Prohibits:
> Invasive research on great apes
> Federal funding of such research both within and outside of the U.S.
> Transport of great apes for such research
> Federal breeding of great apes for such research
Requires:
> Permanent retirement of all federally-owned great apes to sanctuary
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Tell The USDA They Must Enforce The Animal Welfare Act
Elephant advocates around the world were disappointed with a pre-New Year court decision that dismissed, on technical grounds, a federal lawsuit against Feld Entertainment/Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
However disappointing, this decision can in no way be seen as a victory for Ringling or any other circus that enslaves and exploits elephants. Judge Emmett Sullivan’s 57-page decision never addressed the merits of the case, or the mountain of irrefutable evidence that Ringling’s routine confinement, beating and chaining of elephants violates the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
contact the Deputy Administrator of USDA’s Animal Care, and urge that the agency fulfill its obligation under federal law to safeguard the welfare of these elephants by enforcing the Animal Welfare Act.
http://tinyurl.com/yej8gzq
Chester A. Gipson, D.V.M.
Deputy Administrator, USDA-APHIS-AC
4700 River Rd., Unit 97, Riverdale, MD 20737-1234
301-734-7833 (phone)
301-734-4993 (fax)
chester.a.gipson@usda.gov

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