Stop Using Apes in Entertainment

Hi everyone. Welcome to my blog. I am going to post here from time to time on different topics. Some of my future blogs will be about school projects kids can do, things for teachers, ape language, great places like Lola Ya Bonobo and the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, and of course my friend's website

www.freewebs.com/kidssaveapes

Please make sure you visit and if you are a kid be sure to join!

Today, I am going to write about why we shouldn't use apes in entertainment. When I was younger I loved to watch monkeys and apes no matter what they were doing. Now I realize how endangered many primates are and how bad it is to use them for entertainment, especially apes.

Why is it so bad even though many people thing it is fun and funny to dress up chimps and other apes like people?

1. People like to see them dressed up because they can "seem like people" but that is exactly why we should stop it. Apes are so much like humans that we definitely need to give the respect we would give each other. Simply laughing at them, is unkind and cruel.

2. To train apes to act requires them to live very unnatural lives and sometimes the trainers are very mean to them. Even if the trainers are trying to be nice, the apes are very often confined and forced to live an unhappy life. Further, chimpanzees and orangutans can only be used in entertainment for a few years before they become too strong to control on movie sets. Then they can live for decades longer but too often people no longer want to keep them and they end up living very sad lives. Some of the lucky ones end up in sanctuaries but even then they do not know how to behave with others of their species.

3. Using apes in entertainment leads people to buy apes which leads other people to capture and smuggle apes out of the wild.

4. Because people see chimpanzees so often in entertainment, many people think that they are not endangered and then don't do as much to help them.

5. Movies and televsion shows often give the wrong impression about apes. For example, gorillas are often portrayed as ferocious predators when really they are very gentle herbivores.

6. Seeing apes being "fun" to have around the house in movies, makes people think that they would make good pets. The truth is APES ARE NOT PETS! To give apes in captivity a good life requires much more than any house can offer. For one thing, they should be near other apes of the same species. Just as humans should not be separated from other humans. A chimp in a house probably feels like he or she is in jail!

Here is a link to an article on the subject


http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-03-15-reel-apes-campaign_x.htm

So next time you see apes in tv ads and movies, don't just laugh at them think of what they might have go through and of how endangered all great apes (except humans) are.