World Chimpanzee Day
Let's hold the mirror up to ourselves
From the perspective of an Aiderbichler
(written by Gisela Pschenitschnig)
Every year, World Chimpanzee Day commemorates the fact that the history of mankind began in the forests of Africa around seven million years ago.
For 15 years, the ex-lab monkeys of Immuno have been living in the monkey houses with outdoor enclosures in the former safari park in Gänserndorf. That’s a long time for the animals outside the cages, in which they almost all screamed and raged for their freedom and rattled the bars for around thirty years. When Gut Aiderbichl took over the ex-laboratory monkeys, they were animals infected with diseases and severely traumatised. The re-socialisation of these former laboratory monkeys will never be complete. They have suffered and experienced too much during the horrific, long period of research.
Under the guise of research and science, highly intelligent monkeys continue to suffer and die in animal testing laboratories. The conditions in which they are kept completely contradict their natural urge to move. Isolation in solitary confinement is contrary to their character and makes them ill. If they are allowed to live at all after the experiments, the chimpanzees are traumatised and show behavioural disorders – visit our ape sanctuary in Gänserndorf and see for yourself.
The relationship between humans and apes is a well-established fact - let's take a look in the mirror and who do we see?
About 98% of the DNA of great apes is identical to that of humans. Chimpanzees can laugh, giggle, kiss, hold each other’s hands and can also cry. As with humans, an attentive eye can recognise moods from facial expressions and body language. Chimpanzees can pretend, they are empathic, they become brutal when it comes to defending their habitat. Chimpanzees use heavy stones to crack nuts, they sharpen spears with their teeth. This enables them to hunt and defend themselves. Orphaned chimpanzees are cared for and raised by unrelated chimpanzees.
If we allow our closest relatives to become extinct, humans will eventually disappear
Scientists want to learn more about the behaviour of free-living great apes and their human-like behaviour. With the help of research and the observation of great apes, much can be discovered about human behavioural development.
The most modern facility for chimpanzees can never be compared with the animals’ natural habitat. The world’s population is growing, the wilderness is shrinking, illegal poaching and deforestation are increasingly threatening the ape population.
Educate and raise awareness - We are in their debt
Apes exert a special, undeniable fascination on us humans. Most people know chimpanzees from the zoo, those that perform in the circus or are shown in television programmes.
Gut Aiderbichl is trying to give a voice to the 27 ex-lab monkeys still alive at Immuno. Renate Foidl, the director of Gut Aiderbichl in Gänserndorf, helps us to get to know and understand more and more about the wonderful ways of life, fears and everything that lies within the chimpanzees.
Through my years of working at Gut Aiderbichl, I try to read the eyes of the animals, whether they are small, agile ferrets, clever foxes or horses. They all tell us moving stories from their lives. They all tell me: “You have to be able to forgive”.
The Austrian author Thomas Brezina talked to the ex-lab monkeys in his own way, and these conversations and observations have resulted in a very moving book: “So what, said the white chimpanzee”. It is a story of forgiveness.
The important forgiveness that can be seen in the eyes of all the animals at Gut Aiderbichl: in the eyes of rescued cattle, former sport horses, breeding horses, animals with disabilities, maltreated donkeys, abandoned dogs, cats, rabbits and so on. They are all full of joie de vivre again because they have forgiven humans.
An excerpt from Thomas Brezina’s book on forgiveness:
(…) “Forgive! Forgive!” – said the white chimpanzee. (…) The white chimpanzee raised his arms to the night sky, which was dotted with stars. “Repeat after me,” he urged them.
I forgive you for what you have done to us.
I forgive your cruelty and stupidity. I smile at you, even if you deserve otherwise, because I smile for myself.
You must live with what you have done. For me, the past flies away slowly, like a black butterfly that a gust of wind will eventually carry away completely.
You all, who have treated us so carelessly and coldly, are like flowers that wither.
I no longer look at you, but admire the new flowers that have blossomed for me. You are like withered herbs whose leaves are decaying.
But I smell the fresh herbs that have sprouted from the earth and smell of new life.
My anger was like a chain that bound me to you. I break this chain with the sword called FORGIVENESS. I walk on. I play on.
I take joy in all that surrounds me today.
But I will never turn back to you (…).
Let’s look at ourselves in the mirror and think again. Yours sincerely, Gisela
