Cruel Camera

Update: November 26, 2008

Sarah Baeckler
Primatologist Sarah Baeckler went undercover at Yost training facility.

SARAH BAECKLER graduated from law school and now is the executive director of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW), a non-profit organization that provides lifetime care to formerly abused or exploited chimpanzees.

The CSNW recently rescued seven chimpanzees from a company that leased the animals to biomedical facilities. Several of the animals were former entertainment chimps. Jamie, one of the rescued chimps, still wears clothes (by choice), colours, and does other human-like things due to her time spent in private ownership as an entertainer.

document icon Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest 
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Steve Martin
Hollywood animal trainer, Steve Martin.

STEVE MARTIN, as the fifth estate reported, is the leading animal supplier in the entertainment industry, and is one of the few remaining chimpanzee and orangutan trainers left in Hollywood.

Martin sent out a letter to a number of prominent sanctuaries stating that he would entertain a serious offer to sell all his great apes. If no offers were made, he said he could commence to breed the great apes in order to exploit new business opportunities in the entertainment field.

Since his interview with the fifth estate, Martin has had a change of heart.

the fifth estate has learned that he has donated his orangutans to “The Great Ape Trust,” a prominent primate sanctuary located in Des Moines, Iowa.

Martin told us that he will be donating his remaining nine captive chimpanzees to the same sanctuary in the very near future.

Steve Martin
Kirby, former chimpanzee of animal trainer, Steve Martin.

KIRBY, the former Steve Martin chimp that the fifth estate tracked down to a roadside zoo in Arkansas, has yet to find his happy ending.

He is still "performing" at the zoo, begging for scraps of food, locked behind iron bars. The other chimp that shared his cage died this spring.

Kirby is now all alone.