Cecilia enters history as the first great
ape to have the right to live in a sanctuary by means of a human legal
instrument
17/04/04:
The date will enter the world history of the struggle for freedom and the
rights of non-human animals. The chimpanzee Cecília, who lived in the zoo in
Mendoza, Argentina, arrives tomorrow in her new home, the Great Apes Sanctuary of
Sorocaba, in São Paulo, affiliated to the GAP Project. She is the
first chimpanzee in the world who is really enjoying the right to live in a
sanctuary, granted through a Habeas
Corpus, which, until now, was considered an
exclusively human legal instrument.
The Habeas
Corpus petition was made by the Argentine NGO AFADA - Associacion de Funcionarios
y Abocados pelos Derechos de los Animales to a Court in the country, with
arguments that the chimpanzee is a subject of law, not an object, and that she was
living in very bad capitivity conditions at the zoo. The lawsuit went on for
more than a year in the Argentine courts until Judge Maria Alejandra Maurício,
from Mendoza, granted the request and ordered the transfer of Cecilia to the
Brazilian sanctuary.
Other
attempts to free great apes from inadequate captives in Brazil, in the United
States and in Europe through a Habeas
Corpus have been and are being done, but have so far been unsuccessful and
for various reasons, transfers to sanctuaries did not happen.
Cecília is 19 years old and is the only survivor of a
group of chimpanzees who lived in the zoo. She was alone after the unexpected
death, in a short time, of her companions Charly and Xuxa, becoming very
depressed. In addition, the conditions in which she was found were precarious,
further worsening her physical and mental state. At the Great Apes Sanctuary of
Sorocaba, she will go through a quarantine period and then will be introduced
into one of the groups of the more than 50 chimpanzee who live there today.
* Environmental Journalist/Communications Manager of GAP Project International
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