Home > Work > Primate People: Saving Nonhuman Primates through Education, Advocacy, and Sanctuary
1 " Many humans would experiment on nonhumans in the hope of saving a loved one, and they would just as readily experiment on humans to sustain that same hope. "
― Lisa Kemmerer , Primate People: Saving Nonhuman Primates through Education, Advocacy, and Sanctuary
2 " We are morally required to stop systematically exploiting others, whether chimpanzees or pygmy lemurs, chickens or chinchillas. Nonhuman animals are also persons who fare better or worse depending on the way we treat them, we must begin to give them the respect and dignity that persons deserve "
3 " Nonhuman primates have been crowded out of diminishing forests, hunted for food or “medicine,” kidnapped for the lucrative pet/tourist trade, and bred for science. As a result, every primate species on the planet—aside from human beings—is either endangered or threatened. "
4 " Scientists treat animals like petri dishes—recording emotional distress and physiological terror like weather fluctuations on a barometer. "
5 " Might does not make right; self-interest—even desperate self-interest—does not justify exploiting others. "
6 " International trade in primates flourishes because we exploit primates for science. "
7 " What megalomania led us to believe it would be morally acceptable to exploit individuals from other species for scientific experimentation? "
8 " Increasingly we come to understand that any difference between human and nonhuman primates does not necessarily show humans in a complimentary light. "
9 " If we are going to save endangered primates, we must first recognize that they are individuals much like human beings, who prefer to be free to live their lives independent of exploitation. "
10 " Nonhuman primates are many and wondrous, yet few and endangered. "
11 " The lives of anymals matter not just to us—not just in light of our selfish interest in diversity—but to them. "
12 " Our efforts to protect primates will be much more effective if we dismantle the artificial line that we have created between ourselves and other animals. "
13 " Humans are not the pinnacle of evolution we imagine ourselves to be. "
