Chimp attack victim seeks primate sales ban

[Pythonfriend]

i dont think the question of great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla, orang utang and bonobo) has anything to do with the pet trade. or at least its in no way similar to a ban on, lets say, giant snakes or venomous snakes or big cats or sharks or whatever.

so i dont buy the slippery slope arguments in this case.

Although it may all be well and good to ban ownership of chimps and other great apes, the problem is that the law won't stop there.. Government always increases and always grows based on precedent. i.e. once they ban great apes, they'll expand to big cats, then smaller cats, then the rest of the exotics.

slippery slope argument, im not buying it in this case, because the issue is different. the issue is not that they can be dangerous.

the issue is that they are our closest relatives and they are very human. when it comes to shared DNA, intelligence, behavior, physiology, and many other relevant factors, they clearly beat all other species when it comes to how close they are to humans.

check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project

basically they want some very basic rights for the great apes, and create sanctuaries where they can live rather freely and safely and without much human contact or only with voluntary human contact, and then release those that can be released into those sanctuaries. and because such sanctuaries dont really exist yet there is no place to put any great apes right now. so a ban on ownership can be done in law but cannot be enforced right now, because when you take them, there is no place to put them. but they want a ban on breeding.

i think that makes sense. i mean, when a chimpanzee gets sick, you dont bring him to a vet, you bring him to a doctor, because the health issues are the same ones humans get. diabetes, arthritis, alzheimers, asthma, allergies, heart problems, issues with blood pressure. i really think they are not pets and deserve better treatment.

so i am for legislation that helps in getting closer to these goals. i think bans on breeding and sale and higher minimum keeping requirements are good first steps. outlawing them makes no sense right now, but only because there are no sanctuaries.

and i dont see how this is related to puppy mills or bans of giant snakes or big cats or anything like that. if there is a slipperly slope leading anywhere, then the next species to look at would be whales and dolphins, because of their intelligence and long lifespan. the exotic pet trade will be just fine. also its different people behind it, its not the PETA-crowd or the vegans. this push is coming from the humanists, they care about great apes, and to a lesser degree other extremely intelligent species like whales and dolphins, and then they enjoy their steak and really dont care about any other species that are not smarter than a cow or pig. and pigs are quite intelligent.

so i dont see this spilling over, and i dont think you should wonder if it will come on state level or national level. sure, they will try to improve things locally, but when it comes to legislation they are looking at the international level. as in, a multinational convention where individual nations can join and that grows eventually. basically something like the Ottawa treaty that bans land mines. the USA is very reluctant to join any of these (still didnt join the ottawa treaty, hooray anti-personell mines) and is usually among the last nations on the planet to join something like this, so you will be fine. i mean, the great ape keepers among you will be fine for quite a while, the rest of us will be fine anyway ^^