The Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) was located on the campus of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. CHCI included a sanctuary for chimpanzees who have learned to communicate with humans and each other using American Sign Language. CHCI's director was Mary Lee Jensvold. It was founded by former co-directors Roger Fouts and Deborah Fouts. The institute was closed in 2013 when the remaining chimpanzees were transferred to facilities in Quebec, Canada and the building the facility was housed in, was demolished in 2018. Portions of the specialized structures used to house the chimps were dismantled and moved to the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum, for future use. [1]
Loulis and Tatu, the remaining two chimpanzees in the center after the natural death of Washoe and Dar, moved to the Fauna Foundation in Quebec in late August 2013, [3] where they will be integrated into an existing group of eleven chimpanzees.
In September 1980, Washoe, Loulis, and Moja moved to Central Washington University. Tatu and Dar followed the next year. The chimpanzees were originally housed on the third floor of the university's psychology complex. Roger Fouts and Deborah Fouts with their students advocated for, and lobbied the campus and the state legislature for a specialized facility, and the CHCI complex was opened on May 7, 1993. More than twenty years later, on August 28, 2013, the last two remaining chimpanzees moved out of the CHCI.
CHCI promotes advocacy of chimpanzee conservation and the promotion of primate intellect. The sanctuary hosted public sessions, Chimposiums, which allowed the public to see the chimpanzees in action. For safety reasons, no one—visitors or staff—had physical contact with the chimpanzees.
CHCI provides research opportunities for both undergraduates and graduates. When it housed the chimpanzees, many volunteered as docents or assistants within the center while others conducted research on primate behavior. Research projects which inconvenienced the chimpanzees in any way were not permitted; therefore, research was mostly observational.
The chimpanzee, also known simply as chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. The chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo are classified in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 120 to 150 cm.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960, where she witnessed human-like behaviours amongst chimpanzees, including armed conflict. In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace. Goodall is an honorary member of the World Future Council.
Central Washington University (CWU) is a public university in Ellensburg, Washington. Founded in 1891, the university consists of four divisions: the President's Division, Business and Financial Affairs, Operations, and Academic and Student Life (ASL). Within ASL are four colleges: the College of Arts and Humanities, the College of Business, the College of Education and Professional Studies, and College of the Sciences. CWU is considered an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution and 15 percent of its students are Hispanic.
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky was a chimpanzee and the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University. The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace with the linguistic analysis headed up by psycholinguist Thomas Bever. Within the context of a scientific study, Chimpsky was named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky, who posits that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Washoe was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
Oliver was a former "performing" ape once promoted as a missing link or "humanzee" due to his somewhat human-like appearance and a tendency to walk upright. Despite his somewhat unusual appearance and behavior, scientists found that Oliver was not a human-chimpanzee hybrid.
The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.
Research into great ape language has involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and with each other using sign language, physical tokens, lexigrams, and mimicking human speech. Some primatologists argue that these primates' use of the communication tools indicates their ability to use "language", although this is not consistent with some definitions of that term.
Loulis is a chimpanzee who has learned to communicate in American Sign Language.
Lucy (1964–1987) was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice K. Temerlin, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma and his wife, Jane.
Deborah Fouts was the co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI). CHCI was the home of Washoe, the first non-human to acquire a human language, and three other chimpanzees who use the signs of American Sign Language to communicate with each other and their human caregivers. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology (Research) at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. She is married to former co-director, now retired Roger Fouts.
Mary Lee Jensvold is a senior lecturer at Central Washington University. She was the Director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) located on the campus of Central Washington University. CHCI was the home of the chimpanzee Washoe and four other chimpanzees who use the signs of American Sign Language to communicate with one another and their human caregivers.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
Roger S. Fouts is a retired American primate researcher. He was co-founder and co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington University. He is best known for his role in teaching Washoe the chimpanzee to communicate using a set of signs taken from American sign language.
The Fauna Foundation is the only chimpanzee sanctuary in Canada. Located just outside Chambly, on the South Shore of Montreal, the story of Fauna started in 1990 by Gloria Grow and Dr. Richard Allan on their 150-acre (0.61 km2) farm. Later in 1997, it became the Fauna Foundation. Its primary objective, the rescue and care of chimpanzees who have been used in research, began in the wake of the shutdown of LEMSIP.
Chimps Inc. is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) animal sanctuary located at P-B Ranch near Bend, Oregon, United States.
Moja was a chimpanzee at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. She was born at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). In infanthood Moja was treated in a similar way to a child, and immersed in an environment of American Sign Language.
The New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) is a national, registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization “dedicated to ending the use of animals in research, testing, and science education” and replacing them with "modern alternatives that are ethically, humanely, and scientifically superior."
International Primate Day, September 1, is an annual educational observance event organized since 2005 largely by British-based Animal Defenders International (ADI) and supported annually by various primate-oriented advocacy organizations, speaks for all higher and lower primates, typically endorsing humane agendas where primates are at risk, as in research institutions or species endangerment in precarious environmental situations.
Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner was an Austrian zoologist who became well known for the research that she conducted in the United States. She is most well known for her sign language studies with Washoe the chimpanzee, who was the first ape to learn sign language.