The US Fish & Wildlife Service has declared today both wild and captive chimpanzees "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. Wild chimps have been endangered for decades, while captive chimps were "threatened". The reclassification will give captive chimpanzees enhanced legal status. That means persons wanting to use chimpanzees in medical research must obtain a permit from the agency. The new regulations will go into full effect on September 14th this year. The agency director said the previous distinction between wild and captive chimpanzees was undermining the conservation of chimpanzees in the wild and created a "culture of treating these animals as a commodity". Capitalism does that to pretty much anything from which unethical people can wring a profit. Chimps once numbered in the millions at the beginning of the 20th century; now an estimated 172-300,000 remain.
The reclassification of captive chimpanzees will make biomedical use more difficult since their use in research must be "directly and substantially supporting the conservation of chimpanzees in the wild." About 730 chimpanzees are held captive by biomedical laboratories. The National Institutes for Health decided to retire chimpanzees in government custody in 2013. More funding for sanctuaries will be needed once all captive chimpanzees have been freed from research.
US Person notes that chimpanzees have the cognitive ability to cook their food, if they knew how to use fire. Behavorial experiments show chimpanzees prefer cooked sweet potato over raw, and are willing to bring raw food to a researcher so he can 'cook' a sweet potato chip for the subject. No fire is used to keep the primates safe; the researchers covertly substitute a pre-cooked chip for the raw one deposited in a bowl after shaking the bowls in front of the subject chimpanzee. Watch this video of the experiment. [no commerical endorsement intended]