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Published online 2 July 2008 | Nature 454, 15 (2008) | doi:10.1038/454015b
News in Brief
Spain awards apes legal rights
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Please note this is News in Brief, and so will be a short article.
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Hmmm, If I didn't think it would upset cat owners (and pigeon owners), I'd say that's putting the cat amongst the pigeons. Maybe putting the Chimpanzees amongst the spider monkeys would be more appropriate. (I think that spider monkeys are natural prey to chimps, but I'm not certain - some small African monkeys go on the dinner leaf for certain.) So, making zoo environments for Chimpanzees "optimal" would presumably include giving them the opportunity to go a-hunting too, should the fancy take them. I can see that going down really well with the marketing people at the zoos. Not. Well, there is real logic there - if Chimpanzees have mental capabilities comparable with a (human) child of several years, then either they do get the appropriate degree of protection afforded to other such sapient beings, or researchers into human medicine get the right to use human children as experimental animals. Healthy human children at that - you want your results to be applicable to the bulk of Hom.sap.sap, don't you? This is going to be more fun to watch than putting some bishops into the terrier pit between Dawkins and Hitchens. Probably less ethically defensible, but more fun none the less.
I wonder what would happen if that law was extended to include whales?
It is great Emad Abou-Ghazi Egypt
The Spanish parliament's environment committee is morally bankrupt. While it gives human rights to the great apes, it ignores the torture of bulls in Spain's bullfighting rings.
Should not we protect every entity from suffering?
I think it´s great but surely not enough. For instance, in Spain 200,000 dogs are abandoned every year.