Singapore Zoo Using Apes as Photo-Props

The Singapore Zoo usually gets favorable press coverage for the care it provides to its varied collection of animals.

On 29 October 2000 it found itself in the headlines over its use of young chimpanzees and orangutans as photo-props.

Zoo-goers can pay a fee and pose with young animals.

It is impossible to get strong adult animals to cooperate with the "photo-prop" scenario. Therefore young animals are used.

©Karl Amman

Unfortunately for the zoo, photographer Karl Ammann visited one day and took the photos below. His denunciation of the zoo attracted the attention of Singapore's leading newspaper, the Straits Times. Ammann told the press that it was totally unnatural for baby apes to sit on strangers' laps.

IPPL Chairwoman Shirley McGreal was also interviewed for the article and commented that:

Mother apes love their babies. To pull their babies away for human amusement is barbaric.

Singapore Zoo executive director Dr. Cheng Wen Haur stated that the chimpanzees were trained by use of rewards and called the three chimpanzees "ambassadors for the wilderness." He claimed the three youngsters were pulled as babies because they were either very ill or rejected by their mothers.

Straits Times reporter Eunice Lau visited the zoo and found eleven chimpanzees playing in a spacious open enclosure. However, the three young chimpanzees were missing as they were being kept in small cages. Dr. Cheng explained that this was done "because it is easier for the keepers to take them out for the photography sessions."

Singapore resident Louis Ng has been protesting to zoo officials and found the response he got unacceptable.

He wrote back to Dr. Cheng:

You say that the chimps are brought out of their dens periodically to mingle with their keepers and the general public and the photography sessions rarely last beyond 30 minutes. I would like to ask where these chimps spend the rest of their time? The other 23 hours as far as I've seen were spent in a DEN, they can't see the sky, there is only one grilled window which faces the rest of the other cages. When they are let out for photography, they are only allowed to stay on a small bench. This is the life they lead for 4-5 years, is this not a compromise of the chimps' welfare?

IPPL is totally opposed to use of chimpanzees as "photo-props." This is no longer done at US or European zoos although some private chimpanzee keepers such as Mike and Connie Casey do this, running an operation called "Chimparty," as well as selling baby chimpanzees as pets.

Among the many reasons against close contact between streams of zoo-goers and infant apes is that humans can get any disease carried by the chimpanzee. Worse, humans can give chimpanzees diseases to which they have no resistance. If flash bulbs are used, they can cause eye problems. Being kept away from their own kind for the formative years of their youth can result in adult chimpanzees who are unable to live normal chimpanzee social lives.

PROTEST LETTERS NEEDED To register your protest at the use of apes as photo-props and request that the chimpanzees and orangutans used for this purpose be socially rehabilitated, please contact: Dr. Cheng Wen Haur Executive Director Singapore Zoo 80 Mandai Lake Road Singapore 2572 The zoo's e-mail is: singzoo@pacific.net.sg