The Monkey Wars

In The Monkey Wars, Deborah Blum offers a wide-ranging, informative look at animal activists, now numbering some twelve million, from the moderate Animal Welfare Institute to the highly radical Animal Liberation Front (a group destructive enough to be placed on the FBI's terrorist list). And she interviews a wide variety of researchers, many forced to conduct their work protected by barbed wire and alarm systems, men and women for whom death threats and hate mail are common. She takes us to Roger Fouts's research center in Ellensburg, Washington, where we meet five chimpanzees trained in human sign language - Loulis, Tatu, Mojha, Dar, and the most famous, Washoe - and watch the flicker of their fingers as they talk to each other, to themselves, and to stuffed animals (which Fouts sees as a clear sign of intelligence and even more - imagination). Blum introduces us to Alex Pacheco, a founder of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, and to his bitter enemy, Peter Gerone, head of the federal primate center at Tulane and an outspoken critic of animal rights activists, who wants people to think about the trade-off at its most fundamental level - human life versus animal life. And we visit LEMSIP, a research facility in New York State that has no barbed wire, no alarms - and no protesters chanting outside - because its director, Jan Moor-Jankowski, listens to activists with respect. Along the way, Blum offers us insights into the many side-issues involved: scientists (like Roger Fouts) who lose funding because they support animal rights, the intense battle to win over school kids fought by both sides, the danger of transplanting animal organs into humans (it could possibly unleash a deadly, highly infectious disease), and the concerns over dwindling monkey populations.

Deborah Blum, a science writer, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for the series of articles that have inspired this book.