How long does a chimpanzee live?

The death of chimpanzee Cheetah – who worked in Tarzan movies in the 1930’s, announced in the end of the year caused a debate about how long a chimpanzee lives. Some people put in doubt the possibility of a chimpanzee reaches 80 years old.

To answer this question, we can affirm that chimpanzees live as long as humans do. In Central Africa, humans have a life expectation of no more than 45 years old; In the Nordic countries, this expectation is up to 80 years old. What is the reason of the difference? The quality of life and health care define how long a person is about to live. In the case of chimpanzees, it is the same thing.

In African forests, chimpanzees live for no more than 35 years, due to all the risks they are submitted to. Hunting by humans, contamination of human diseases and destruction of their habitat cause their lives to become much shorter.

Zoos and Medical Torture Centers have been promoting the wrong information that a chimpanzee does not live more than 40 years in captivity and the ones who reach this age are considered to be old. However, they do not explain that this kind of captivity in fact destroy the life of the primates prematurely.

Mainly in zoos the lives of chimpanzees are drastically shortened. And we have the proof here in Brazil, where in the last ten years there was a record of death of primates in the zoos. If they were not replaced with the importation of animals, there would be no chimpanzees anymore in Brazilian zoos.

A chimpanzee who is submitted to public exhibition, and who is in contact with humans carrying diseases that they do not have immunity against, suffer with the stress caused by the constant public harassment and dies bit by bit in this kind of captivity.

Our experience with sanctuaries shows that if a chimpanzee has the least possible contact with humans, has a large space to exercise, is offered plenty of good food and efficient medical care, his or her life extends as long as humans in developed countries.

THE CASE CHEETAH: Writer Richard Dean Rosen published an article in 2008 in Washington Post affirming that there was not another Cheetah but the one who lived in a refugee in Palm Spring, California. Now, with the death of the chimpanzee Cheetah who live at Suncoast Sanctuary, in Florida, and was 80 years old, Rosen says that this was not the chimpanzee who worked with Johnny Wesmuller in Tarzan movies in the 1930´s. He believes that the one or more chimpanzees who had worked in the movie that time would be dead, as long as none of them would not lived for more than 40-50 years.

No matter the dead chimpanzee Cheetah who lived in Florida was or was not the real one, the most important point of the debate is that a chimpanzee was able to live to reach 80 years old. The owner of the sanctuary, Debbie Cobb, told her grandfather had bought Cheetah from Johnny Wesmuller himself, in 1960, when she was five and he was already an adult. Now she is 51 and therefore it is likely that the Cheetah who died in Florida was almost, not to mention exact 80 years old.

We have a chimpanzee at Sorocaba Sanctuary – Francis, who came from Bolivia - who is 50 years old. There are also Tuca and Margareth, who are almost 50. Although they have suffered for years in circuses and zoos, they were able to recover and survive.

Coming back for the initial question: How long does a chimpanzee live? If we could ask this directly to them, the answer would probably be: if it was to live in a zoo, the least the most; if it was to live in a sanctuary, all the years possible. Pay attention. No human is considered to old in his 40´s, and the same it is with chimpanzees. If they are young and debilitated, the reason is their bad quality of life. And it is on our hands to change these conditions.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International