The Lesser of Two Evils....

I received an email today from a well-meaning friend, but it made me think, and I have been thinking about things past in my life, so this is just a post to make people stop and think. I don't know, and read and understand this before you leave me an ugly or mean comment, that there is a right answer to this.

Here is the article I received:

Last night, ABC News: Nightline broke the story of more than 300 chimpanzees languishing at one of the world's largest primate research facilities. The report featured video footage gathered by The Humane Society of the United States during a nine-month undercover investigation at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana -- and showed the routine and possibly unlawful treatment of hundreds of chimpanzees and monkeys. Each animal's suffering detailed in the report was wrenching, but the story of 26 elder chimps currently warehoused at the facility was particularly poignant. Watch our undercover video and see for yourself. These 26 chimps were taken from their mothers in the wild, and have since lived a life behind bars. The oldest, Karen, was captured in 1958, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president. Please help end invasive research on these chimps and give them the sanctuary they deserve. Urge your U.S. Representative, Jeb Hensarling, to support the Great Ape Protection Act. The Great Ape Protection Act was re-introduced in the House of Representatives today, on the heels of our undercover investigation. This legislation would phase out invasive research on the more than 1,000 chimpanzees remaining in U.S. laboratories, and lay the groundwork for permanent retirement of the approximately 500 chimpanzees owned by the federal government, including Karen and other chimps at the New Iberia Research Center. TAKE ACTION Please make a brief phone call to Representative Hensarling at (202) 225-3484. When you call, you'll likely speak to a staff member who can take your message. Remember to be polite and professional, and leave your name and where you live so it's clear that you are a constituent. When you call, you can say: "Hello, my name is [your name]. I'm a constituent in [your town]. Last night, ABC News: Nightline aired a report of chimpanzees at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana. I'm calling to ask Representative Hensarling to please co-sponsor the Towns-Reichert Great Ape Protection Act, to stop this cruelty and to save taxpayers millions of dollars. Thank you." We expect that Congress will receive a huge outpour of calls on this issue. If you aren't able to get through, please keep trying. After you make your call, send a follow up message and tell your friends and family how they can help, too. Thank you for speaking out for chimps held in research. They deserve better than a life of torment and misery. Together, we can make a difference for these amazing creatures. Sincerely, Wayne Pacelle President & CEO The Humane Society of the United States

Copyright © 2009 The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) | All Rights Reserved. The Humane Society of the United States | 2100 L Street, NW | Washington, DC 20037 humanesociety@hsus.org | 202-452-1100 | www.humanesociety.org

And as awful as this is, here is my post:

Two things no one thinks about, as they didn't with the new no-horse-slaughter-for-human-consumption-law, is 1. where will all of these 500 chimpanzees go? Horses are starving to death as we speak, and are being horribly mistreated because there are more horses than good homes. These chimps can't be returned to the wild - that sounds wonderful, but unless there are highly trained people to reintroduce them into a truly terrifying habitat (think jungle predators, and have you ever seen what a dominant male chimp does to intruder chimps in their territory? These "citified" chimps would be torn to shreds in an instant. They have no foraging skills....a creature starving to death in the wild is horrible to witness). And 2. I agree that what they are being put through is awful....but what is worse? A child with a deadly disease languishing and suffering, or a chimp suffering so that child can be cured and live?

I've worked in two horrible places in my life - the neonatal unit & children's cancer ward at the University of Mississippi teaching hospital, where I learned that "soundproof" treatment rooms were NOT in any way soundproof, and in the lab next to my Anatomy & Physiology professor's lab, where he kept "his dogs" -- dogs that he conducted heart medication experimentation on. Anyone who knows me knows my passion and love for animals, but if I had my choice, I would work every day beside those poor dogs, who, by the way, other than the medical things they were exposed to, had a quiet, comfortable, well-fed, climate-controlled life, rather than work one more day hearing a small child screaming in pain due to the "invasive" procedures he and she were having to undergo. If one chimp has to undergo that same torture, so that in 5 years not one more child will ever have to enter a "soundproof" treatment room, I will any day take the chimp undergoing torture than a child.

So anytime the radical, left-wing tree-huggers try to start a movement like this, keep in mind that there are two sides to every story. Are you qualified to adopt and care for a wild animal who has unfortunately, but possibly necessarily, been deprived of its natural life, and will have all kinds of special needs and issues for you to deal with - and if you can't, do you know of someone who can? When we see injustices that we think need to be stopped, before we rock the boat, we should also provide suggestions for the answers to these injustices as well, or well-meaning people very often end up creating even worse injustices as a consequence. It kills me to think of these chimps now languishing in a zoo who is poorly equipped to deal with this intelligent species, and these chimps will have all kinds of behavioural and developmental problems. At least where they are now, they are being fed and kept for the most part comfortable.

And while I could never do these things to either child nor animal, try walking past one of those "soundproof" rooms during a treatment.........