You quote Kathy Hudson, deputy director for science, outreach and policy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as saying: “In a perfect world, we would absolutely like to move all of the [retiring laboratory] chimps directly to Chimp Haven [sanctuary]” (Nature 491, 18; 2012). This fails to acknowledge the NIH's legal mandate to do just that.

Since the passage of the Chimpanzee Health Improvement Maintenance and Protection (CHIMP) Act 12 years ago, the NIH has done less than right by the law and by its research chimps in allowing labs to make discretionary decisions about the animals' retirement. It claims not to have sufficient funding to provide housing for retired chimps at the federal sanctuary, while financing the expansion of labs to accommodate chimps.

The CHIMP Act obliges the NIH to provide lifetime care for retired chimps. The agency's fiscal-reserve cap does not restrict it from finding more funds to fulfil its mandate, or limit its responsibility to do so. Meanwhile, the federal sanctuary should not be going short.