The Great Ape Project | 301 recognition of great ape rights as well This has resulted in some remarkable changes Several countries have imposed a ban on invasive biomedical research with great apes, and the United States, where most research with great apes occurs, has stopped killing so-called surplus great apes and instead now relocates them in sanctuaries The Great Ape Project was launched in London on June 14, 1993 by Peter Singer, philosopher at Princeton University, and Paola Cavalieri, philosopher and editor of the Italian journal Etica & Animali On that day the book The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity was released, which contains contributions from more than thirty subscribers to “A Declaration on Great Apes.” This declaration demands the extension of the moral community of equals to include all human and nonhuman great apes Like us, nonhuman great apes are intelligent beings with a rich and varied social and emotional life Therefore, it is argued, we should consider them our moral equals; we ought to respect their basic interests in the same way we respect similar human interests The protection of these interests needs to be assured through the endorsement of three basic rights, namely the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture Among the early supporters of the Great Ape Project are zoologists/primatologists Marc Bekoff, Richard Dawkins, Roger and Deborah Fouts, Jane Goodall, Adriaan Kortlandt, Lyn Miles, Toshisada Nishida and Francine Patterson and philosophers Dale Jamieson, James Rachels, Tom Regan, Bernard Rollin, and Steve Sapontzis Why this focus on great apes? There appear to be three major reasons, namely our close relationship with nonhuman great apes, their rich mental lives, and the expectation that the cost to stop their exploitation is relatively limited and thus quite feasible Though the Great Ape Project directs its attention to great apes, many of its contributors see this as a first step in the process of extending the community of equals Indeed, many are prominent advocates for other animals as well The use of great apes for biomedical research is meeting increasing moral and legal resistance Over the last decade, several countries have forbidden the use of nonhuman great apes for invasive biomedical research, namely Austria, Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and The United Kingdom Among these countries, only Austria and the Netherlands used great apes for biomedical research, and these have since been moved to sanctuaries and zoos At the time of writing, the European Union is considering imposing a ban on great ape experiments in all of its member states (Harrison, 2008) The United States is virtually the only country which still uses great apes for biomedical research and testing The majority of the approximately 1,200 chimpanzees still used for research are housed in six research facilities In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the CHIMP Act into law, which states that chimpanzees no longer needed for research should not be killed, but moved into sanctuaries, and that the government needs to assume the largest part of funding needed for their lifetime care A 2007 amendment to the CHIMP Act prohibits using these chimpanzees for research ever again In 2008, the Great Ape Protection Act was introduced to end biomedical research using the remaining chimpanzees in U.S laboratories Several animal advocates