Growing Up With Chimpanzees

Dawn Forsythe was just a young girl in the 1950s when her dad, Arthur, got a job at the Detroit Zoo training chimpanzees to perform in shows. She grew up with the chimpanzees and was allowed behind the scenes of the shows, where the animals were housed and trained. She recalls holding the hand of a chimpanzee and thinking of him as her sibling.

Even though Dawn’s father was abusive to her and her family, she never saw the connection between their home life and his job, and she loved going to the chimpanzee performances. Then someone saw Arthur throw a chimpanzee against the wall, like he had done to Dawn’s mother, and Dawn wondered how many times Arthur had abused the animals as well. Many years later, as an adult, Dawn wanted to tell her firsthand account of the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans and the abusive ways in which chimpanzees are trained to perform. You can read the rest of her story here. 

Fortunately, zoos in the United States have stopped their chimpanzee performances. But the animals are still abused and made to perform, such as in current commercials for CareerBuilder. Please don’t patronize companies that abuse chimpanzees in this way, and instead choose animal-friendly companies, such as Monster.
 

Outside CareerBuilder’s Chicago headquarters, PETA members tell the company to stop abusing chimpanzees.

Written by Michelle Sherrow