SIX remote African islands are to be turned into sanctuaries for chimpanzees, released from research laboratories after years of experimentation, writes Jonathan Leake.

The islands, off the coast of Liberia, west Africa, have been taken over by the New York Blood Centre (NYBC) to release more than 70 animals used in its hepatitis research programmes.

Campaigners hope the example might inspire the creation of other sanctuaries to house retired research animals, especially great apes.

The centre is one of many research institutes to abandon experiments on chimpanzees because it now considers such work unacceptable on ethical and welfare grounds.

The decision, led by its scientists, to set up sanctuaries for the animals to live out their lives in semi-natural peace, has been widely praised by campaigners.

The African sanctuaries are initially being set up for the exclusive use of animals released from NYBC’s Vilab facility at Robertsfield, Liberia.

If they succeed they could become a model for similar releases of animals from zoos and laboratories.

The Vilab centre, set up in the 1970s, made many breakthroughs in blood research, including the development of vaccines against hepatitis B, and systems for sterilising blood to prevent the spread of hepatitis and Aids viruses.

“Vilab did a great job for a long time but there are new methods for doing this kind of research so we don’t need to use chimpanzees,” said Betsy Brotman, its director.

“Research chimpanzees generally receive little reward for the knowledge we gain.

“Once their work is over their futures are grim. They often live out the rest of their lives, which last an average of 50 years, in cramped cages or laboratories.”

Brotman and her colleagues originally planned to release the animals into national parks in Liberia but abandoned this when they realised that the experimental chimps associate humans with food and so might pose a risk to tourists and villagers.

They bought the islands, in a coastal estuary 10 miles from Vilab’s base, and have since been experimenting with releases of small groups of chimpanzees.

The colony has already experienced a baby boom, prompting the scientists to sterilise the second generation of “settlers” before their release.

Alfred Prince, the retired head of Vilab, who now chairs America’s Hepatitis Research Foundation, said the programme had so far proved successful and NYBC would soon be ready to release all its remaining chimpanzees onto the islands.

He said: “The islands are between 10 and 90 acres in size so they are not big enough for the chimps to live unsupported.

“We will have to keep taking them food and, in the dry season, water too. We have set up an endowment fund so there will always be funding for them.”

Animal welfare campaigners will contrast such approaches with that taken in Britain where most primates are killed in a humane way once their research lives are over.

There are no British research centres working on chimpanzees but in 2005 researchers carried out 3,120 medical procedures on other types of primate such as rhesus monkeys and macaques.

Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, has said that while there was no current need for experiments on chimpanzees, gorillas or orang-utans, their use in future should not be ruled out.

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