© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Chimpanzees Endangered, No Longer Eligible For Most Research

A baby chimpanzee relaxes on its mother Swela at the Leipzig Zoo in Leipzig, central Germany, Thursday, April 23, 2015. (Jens Meyer/AP)
A baby chimpanzee relaxes on its mother Swela at the Leipzig Zoo in Leipzig, central Germany, Thursday, April 23, 2015. (Jens Meyer/AP)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that chimpanzees in captivity are now considered endangered and ineligible for certain biomedical research.

Chimps are the closely related to humans and are the preferred animal for testing. Some research will continue, but only if it’s beneficial to the chimps.

Vicki Croke of WBUR’s The Wild Life blog speaks with Here & Now‘s Robin Young about why chimpanzees are used for biomedical testing, and what this new ruling means for chimps and humans.

Guest

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.