Free
September 9th, 2011 at 9:00 am by David FarrarStuff reports:
It’s a video that has melted the hearts of hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Laboratory chimpanzees at a research facility in Austria were filmed stepping into daylight for the first time after decades in captivity – and they did not hide their joy.
They peered out of an open door, uncertain at first, before hugging each other and taking their first steps around the sunlit outdoor compound, climbing to the top of the trees to look at the views outside.
German television network RTL broadcast the footage on Sunday, and different YouTube versions of the 10 chimpanzees exploring the outside world for the first time have since attracted more than 130,000 hits.
The chimpanzees, who were part of tests for a pharmaceutical company since they were infants, were freed from captivity after a 14-year battle, the Daily Mail reported.
The video is below. Very moving and wonderful.
Note the video is now the English language version.
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September 9th, 2011 at 9:08 am
They’re like Austrians being let out of their abductor’s basement for the first time!
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:11 am
great watch but shows what assholes we humans can be to animals
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I know I’m going to get crucified, but…
Vote:they’re only bloody monkeys! I’d rather drugs got tested on them before they get tested on people.
They could have been part of the cure for cancer or aids or something equally deadly and that the animal rights idiots have human blood on their hands for delaying the production of drugs that save lives.
September 9th, 2011 at 9:29 am
gazzmanaic, the need for animal testing where it is unavoidable and neccesssary is one thing.
Vote:Inflicting needless suffering on animals like in this case is something completely different.
September 9th, 2011 at 9:36 am
14 years? Couldn’t they have let them out at weekends?
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:37 am
It has to said that they are no more free now than then! Just that the prison exercise yard is larger. That is all.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:40 am
gazzmaniac – “they’re only bloody monkeys”
Apes actually. Still, you’re right. They’re just apes. As are we.
Apparently chimpanzees are self-aware, but I doubt that they have developed a philosophy of personal rights more sophisticated than the desire to survive, so I guess it is up to us wise, compassionate apes to treat them in an ethical manner. Same with any animal really.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:42 am
I like monkeys and apes.
Like I always say, so what if we evolved from Monkeys?? Monkeys are fucking awesome!
I understand gazzmaniacs point, but deep down inside there is a niggling feeling, that it ain’t right.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:45 am
Animal protectionism is a position within the animal rights movement that favors incremental change in pursuit of non-human animal interests.
It is contrasted with abolitionism, the position that human beings have no moral right to use animals, and ought to have no legal right, no matter how the animals are treated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Animal protectionism is a position within the animal rights movement that favors incremental change in pursuit of non-human animal interests.
It is contrasted with abolitionism, the position that human beings have no moral right to use animals, and ought to have no legal right, no matter how the animals are treated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Animal protectionism is a position within the animal rights movement that favors incremental change in pursuit of non-human animal interests.
It is contrasted with abolitionism, the position that human beings have no moral right to use animals, and ought to have no legal right, no matter how the animals are treated
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:51 am
I see no difference in those apes being used for medical experiments than say a farm dog being used to round up sheep, or sheep and cattle being used for food and milk. All were bred to do a job. It is no different to building a machine to do a job. Those animals wouldn’t have existed at all if their use wasn’t predetermined by humans.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:58 am
Sorry Gazz that argument has more holes in it than a girls high school.
Farm dogs, hunting dogs etc are doing instinctive things and enjoying the process, cows sheep etc are producing normally if a little more often than nature would dictate.
Monkeys being subjected to medical experiments is not what I would call an instinctive behaviour, nor particularly natural.
Don’t get me wrong Gazz, I see where you are coming from in regard to the testing for the benefit of mankind. But to say the animals are breed to do a job, while maybe true, does not make it right.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 9:59 am
gazzmaniac – “Those animals wouldn’t have existed at all if their use wasn’t predetermined by humans”
Sure, that is why the most common bird species in the world is the chicken, so if basic survival is your criteria of judging their success as a species, then chickens are doing very nicely.
Some would argue that the quality of life they experience is an important factor, and an ethical consideration.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 10:07 am
@lofty
Humans didn’t evolve from monkeys. We share a common ancestor.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 10:10 am
Yeah I know, but monkeys are still awesome.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 10:13 am
“they’re only bloody monkeys!”
Vote:FAIL
September 9th, 2011 at 10:16 am
” before hugging each other ”
Vote:another fail
September 9th, 2011 at 10:18 am
Awesome, just before the election, there’s the Green party list filled in fell swoop.
Vote:No disrespect intended to the chimps, on second thought these primates would probably do a better job than the monkeys put forward so far.
September 9th, 2011 at 10:41 am
They’re just apes. As are we.
Speak for yourself. We’re not all evolutionists.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 10:49 am
This video will do more for the anti vivsectionist and anti animal testing movement than any of the hard core animal activist lab invasions.
Every time I see one of those pictures of a bear in a cage being milked for bile, I’m horrified, but disconnected. This video is far more uplifting.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:14 am
Raging Glory – “Speak for yourself. We’re not all evolutionists.”
Okay, I am an ape. You might be interested in this. Is this ethical?
*VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED*
http://www.health.medicbd.com/library/video_play/zwkkmsoo4a4/Head_Transplant_425
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:25 am
@Raging Glory
Technically, nobody is an evolutionist. That’s a fictional title conjured by people with an overly-strong attachment to bronze-age fairy tales.
The evidence packed into your body in terms of its morphology, metabolism, molecules and DNA does in fact, demonstrate we are an ape-species.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:33 am
“Apes actually. Still, you’re right. They’re just apes. As are we.”
Were apes. Were not apes. Were apes again.
I really wish you Darwinian’s would make up your minds.
On the subject at hand, while I think the notion of “animal rights” meaningless nonsense, human beings do have a divinely mandated responsibility to care for the created order and the use of animals in drug testing is wrong. The way these poor creatures have been treated is vile and the company involved should be held accountable.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:41 am
“Technically, nobody is an evolutionist. That’s a fictional title conjured by people with an overly-strong attachment to bronze-age fairy tales.”
Then why are scientists still using it?
And no, its a title conjured by scientists.
There are no “bronze age” fairy tales in Scripture.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:45 am
“I see no difference in those apes being used for medical experiments than say a farm dog being used to round up sheep, or sheep and cattle being used for food and milk. ”
One is torture, the other is not. Dog’s LIKE rounding up sheep. Cows generally like being milked.
I’m not saying we cannot use animals for our benifit, including for food. But their are humane ways to do that. Torturing animals is wrong, and these chimps were tortured.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Watch this gazzmaniac – I’ll be surprised if you can make it to the end:
Vote:
September 9th, 2011 at 11:53 am
We don’t use that title Lee. We use the term biologist.
Creationists employ it as just another sad stratagem implying the use of biological evidence is irrational.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Lee01 – “human beings do have a divinely mandated responsibility to care for the created order”
Doesn’t that amount to the rights granted by God to animals to be upheld my men? It seems very similar to my secular construct.
In other words, I agree.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 11:58 am
“We don’t use that title Lee. We use the term biologist”.”
I have heard and read scientists use the term repeatedly.
“Creationists employ it as just another sad stratagem implying the use of biological evidence is irrational.”
No, the use it to expose the lie that biological evidence proves secular fundamentaist’s creation myth.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Scott,
Perhaps so, but I’m wary about using the term “rights” in this case. I prefer the term “animal welfare”. I think the terminology of “rights” is overused in modern political discourse. In part I am wanting to distinguish between a reasonable approach to animal welfare, and the kind of extremist and morally bankrupt ideas pushed by Peter Singer.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Looks as though they were used for HIV research in the early days. All very well to judge by todays standards, but easy to forget HIV was devastating when it burst onto the scene, and therefore the search for an effective vaccine or drugs was urgent.
Today it is very difficult to use primates in research particularly for medical experiments, at least in western countries.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
“but easy to forget HIV was devastating when it burst onto the scene”
Largely because the San Francisco “homosexual community” refused to keep their dicks in their pants long after the problem was known.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
“This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
I’m in Chicago
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
You can watch the feature film (documentary) streaming here Mark:
http://www.earthlings.com/
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Note: Apologies for my 9.45 triplicated post. The first two got bounced, so I dropped the link, only for all three to appear.
Vote:September 9th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
There’s a lot of emotion about this topic…
Vote:If those apes have AIDS then I don’t think they should be deliberately put anywhere near a wild population and it’s probably a good thing that they have been isolated all these years.