Because the adults protect the infants, several adults are sometimes killed to obtain one baby. Popular in AIDS Research Chimpanzees are now popular subjects for AIDS research, although their immune system does not succumb to the virus. Chimpanzees are also used in painful cancer, hepatitis, and psychological tests, as well as for research into artificial insemination and birth control methods, blood diseases, organ transplants, and experimental surgery. Their use in military experiments is suspected, but such information is kept secret and is hard to verify. Because they are in short supply, captive chimps are often subjected to multiple experiments, each of which can last an average of two to four years.
Chimpanzees are highly active and very socially oriented.
When kept isolated in laboratories with no regular physical contact with either humans or other chimps, they quickly become psychotic. Because adult chimpanzees are strong and often unmanageable, and because infected chimpanzees cannot be placed in zoos or existing sanctuaries, many chimpanzees are killed before the age of 10. Others, perhaps not as lucky, are kept in tiny cages for decades at such places as Buckshire Corp., a USDA-licensed animal dealer exposed by PETA in 1994 for housing 42 chimpanzees in abysmal substandard cages. This plan is, in reality, just a funding mechanism for five breeding colonies to maintain a steady supply of chimpanzees for vivisectors. In 1993, NMSU's chimpanzee colony passed into the hands of the Coulston Foundation, a facility that now cages more than 500 chimpanzees.