Ape Rights and Wrongs

30 July 2009 | Word from YoG Ambassador Ian Redmond (OBE) from http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/

Should great apes have rights? This was one of the questions addressed last Sunday (26th July) on BBC1’s The Big Questions, which the BBC describe as their ‘flagship ethical and religious debate programme’.

I was invited to take part not because of my role as Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla, but because I have spent hundreds of hours in the company of apes and have had the good fortune to regard some of them as friends (and an objective assessment of their behaviour suggests that the friendship was mutual).

I guess for any pedantic taxonomists reading this, I should specify ‘non-human apes as friends as well as human ones…’ Great apes share so many characteristics with humans that they are now classed in the same zoological family as us – the Hominidae (find out more in my new book The Primate Family Tree/Primates of the World via http://www.4apes.com/shop). But paradoxically, in law they have the same legal standing as a piece of furniture; in most countries without wild ape populations, captive apes can be bought and sold legally, and any protection they do have in law is accorded mainly because they are endangered species or because they are animals and covered by anti-cruelty laws. Unfortunately these laws tend to take a rather physical view of cruelty as beating or starving an animal, rather than causing it suffering in other ways – so in law there is nothing to stop the owner of any non-human primate pulling an infant off a mother and selling one or both of them, even though it self-evidently causes great distress to both.

The programme, which can be seen on-line at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lw5v7#synopsis, highlighted for me how strongly some people feel about this – whether for or against. The divide between the two sides was not bridged, and I suspect few viewers changed their opinion as a result of listening to the arguments, despite the passion with which some were made.

Briefly, my personal position is that the concept of ‘rights’ is an important one in defining limits to human behaviour, whether you believe these rights are God-given or a human construct. As such, I see no reason why the concept should not be extended to other species, especially those with a higher-order of intelligence who share many of the characteristics we consider to be important in humans. It seems to me (and many others) quite wrong that a self-aware social mammal with cognitive abilities similar to a child has the same legal standing as a chair, i.e. a possession to be bought and sold. To me, great apes deserve respect, and the granting of basic rights in law might change atavistic attitudes and help prevent the abuses that humans inflict on them. To those who say human rights are not respected everywhere, I agree and wish it were otherwise; but it makes no sense to ignore one kind of abuse while striving to prevent another – we need action on both fronts.

I should also stress, however, that these are my personal views based on 33 years of studying, interacting with and in some cases becoming friends with great apes; these views are not those of the UN Great Ape Survival Partnership or the UN Year of the Gorilla campaign, which focus on ensuring the necessary steps are taken for great apes to survive in their natural habitat.

To find out more about the philosophical arguments for ape rights, visit the Great Ape Project at http://www.greatapeproject.org/. The rights GAP seeks for great apes are simply life, liberty and freedom from torture. I’d also recommend reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so as to better understand the difference between what we strive to give our own species and what those who have signed up to GAP seek to grant to non-human beings.

My wife made a very pertinent comment after the programme, observing that in any group of people the vast majority respond positively to a call for greater respect for and protection of great apes, whereas talk of rights immediately divides the room. And as great apes need all the friends they can get at the moment, tactically it might be better in the short term to focus on educating people about apes to increase respect for their cognitive abilities and social skills. Then in the not too distant future, the logic of granting them rights might not seem such a radical idea…

Cheers,
Ian