More than 100 chimpanzees that have lived virtually their entire lives in scientific laboratories will be sent to retire at a national sanctuary called Chimp Haven, the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday.

“These animals have made important contributions to research to improve human health, but new technologies have reduced the need for their continued use in research,” NIH Director Francis S. Collins said in a statement.

The 113 chimps currently live at the New Iberia Research Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where they’ve been used to research diseases and test and develop medicine. Most of them have never walked on grass or seen the sky without bars.  

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The NIH had previously announced that just 10 chimps from New Iberia would move to Chimp Haven in Keithville, La., with the remaining 103 being sent to Texas Biomedical Research Institute in Texas. But animal rights activists objected. After months of negotiations, the NIH, the Humane Society of the United States and Chimp Haven agreed on the plan announced Tuesday.

“This is a ray of light for captive chimpanzees,” Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said. 

Dr. Linda Brent, president of Chimp Haven, hailed the plan as the result of unprecedented cooperation.

“We look forward to continuing efforts on behalf of additional chimpanzees retired in the future,” Brent said.

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Chimp Haven currently houses 106 chimps owned by the federal government. Brent said the sanctuary focuses on giving the primates relative freedom and choices they don’t have at a lab. 

To implement the plan, Chimp Haven must raise $2.3 million to build additional enclosures. The Humane Society has agreed to donate $500,000. The New England Anti-Vivisection Society said it would provide a matching gift of $100,000.

“This group of chimpanzees has endured so much” said Kathleen Conlee, vice president of animal research issues at the Humane Society. “We hope that those who have used these animals in the past, including the pharmaceutical industry, will contribute to this effort so that the chimpanzees can now live in the sanctuary that they deserve.”

The primates will be moved in two phases beginning in January or February. The first group of chimps will fill out existing houses at Chimp Haven. The second group will move when enough money has been raised for construction, which is expected to be finished within 12 to 15 months.

The New Iberia primates include eight young chimps that were born in the lab and that will move to the sanctuary with their mothers.

Four members of the chimp colony will not move on with the others, however, as veterinarians have determined they are too sick to transfer. They will live out their lives at the New Iberia lab.

Dr. John Pippin of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said Chimp Haven is the retirement the chimps deserve.

“I look forward to the day when all chimpanzees are made ineligible for experimentation and can spend their days in sanctuaries,” Pippin said. 

The doctor said he will renew his efforts to retire another 14 chimps that were transferred two years ago to Texas Biomed from a facility in Alamogordo, N.M. They were slated to be used for hepatitis research but they have not yet been used. Pippin said they are old and have medical conditions.

“We believe it is clear that they are not needed for research and should be retired,” he said.

An NIH advisory committee is now developing recommendations on how to deal with hundreds of other NIH chimpanzees still in labs in light of recent findings that most current invasive research on our closest biological relative is unnecessary.

Donations for the construction of retirement housing at Chimp Haven can be made to Chimp Haven, the Humane Society and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. 

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A newly published study shows that "bush meat" and other wild animal products intercepted on their way into the United States often bring with them pathogens that can be deadly to humans, wildlife and livestock.

The pilot study focused on wild animals and wild animal products coming from primates, rodents and bats from Africa that were imported for human consumption and confiscated, mainly at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. What researchers found was that viruses sometimes persisted in these products even when they were smoked or otherwise prepared to make them safe for eating.

"We know from studies and outbreaks in Africa that live animals and bush meat carry a range of pathogens," said wildlife veterinarian Kristine Smith of EcoHealth Alliance, a wildlife conservation and global health nonprofit group in New York City which led the study.

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Some of the viruses they found included foamy virus -- a relative of simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV (elated to HIV), and herpes, including several new strains. Bush meat like that analyzed in the study has been known to carry Ebola and monkey pox, which remain a concern even though they did not show up in the initial samples.

The study, conducted with the Centers for Disease Control, was only a start for health and environment experts concerned about the global trade in wildlife products.

The imports sometimes are often confiscated from single travelers — often people traveling to the United States carrying products that may be traditional fare from back home in Africa or Asia.

But there are also commercial shipments, said Smith. "You get big boxes, covered up with smelly dried fish. Once you dig down through that disgustingness you find the primates."

The animal products were discovered in a wide variety of conditions, said Smith. There were parts of African cane rats completely covered in mold and oozing fluids. Another whole cane rat carcass arrived in a cooler, completely preserved and fresh.

"A lot of what we saw was bloody, moldy, raw,” said Smith. "Some of the… primates look very well smoked on the outside, but inside there was still red meat."

Although most of the samples were confiscated between 2008 and 2010 and tested immediately, one large shipment seized in 2006 by U.S. Fish and Wildlife was not analyzed until four years later -- and still carried multiple viruses. 

Normally, U.S. agencies that confiscate wildlife products — typically the CDC and U.S. Fish and Wildlife — destroy them by incineration, Smith said.

Testing them first provides a picture of what is likely making its way into the market, she said. Experts estimate that only about 10 percent of the illegal trade is halted by authorities.

The United States is the world’s largest importer of wildlife and wildlife products.

About 55 million pounds of wildlife products enters the United States each year — including foods, fashion, traditional Chinese medicines and hunting trophies. In addition, more than 1 billion live animals were also legally imported for agriculture, clinical research, education and exhibition, and the pet and aquarium industry, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office.

That report concluded that gaps in the system regulating wildlife imports — which falls under several different agencies — increase the risk of disease that spread between animals and humans, as well as to other animals.

Smith says this pilot study established two important findings — that viruses were traveling to the United States and that the U.S. agencies involved in managing wildlife imports could work together seamlessly.

"We now need to expand the work to other ports around the country, and expand to other products, not just what CDC regulates," she said.

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