I hate every ape I see,
From chimpan-A to chimpanzee,
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me!

"they"

*insert ORLY owl-picture with "Beastiality?" tagline here

The Grape Ape Project wants Hanna-Barbera to return to Saturday-morning dominance.

If you disagree, you're just an apephobe.

Didn't they try something like this in the US in the 60's?

Blues_X [TotalFark]

Wasn't that Matthew Broderick movie?

Blues_X

Around eight years later, one of the workers was able to visit one of the male chimps that had been placed in the labs. The caged chimp recognized him immediately and signed the word he had used as his nickname for the worker. Then he signed "get key."

That is the saddest thing I've heard all week.

I'm pretty far from any kind of PETA person...I hunt regularly, clean it and cook it and eat it myself...but an animal that can farking talk to you like that...eh...

/bummed

Soon it will be unlawful to refer to them as "Damn Dirty Apes."

Damn you!!! Damn you all to hell!!

Your ape wants to get engaged.

Give apes the vote. You won't regret it.

Watching a PotA movies on Sci-Fi right now. Go apes!

If apes and such are giving human status, it won't be long before Farkers can finally marry.

Ny-QuilDriver: Soon it will be unlawful to refer to them as "Damn Dirty Apes."

And just forget about using the words "No" or "Do".

/Liked Conquest more than any of the other sequels
//nerd

Hell, WE'RE animals & giving us rights didn't do much.

Moonbat

There are recognized tests for establishing self-awareness, such as the rouge test. Mistreating any member of a species that can demonstrate recognition of itself as an individual, and not merely react based on instinct, is fundamentally wrong in my opinion.

Grape Ape is a tasty beverage. Or was. Used to sell it at the zoo. Anyone in Lincoln Park wanna run over to the zoo and see if they still sell it? Cause if they do, that's super.

/yes I'm 31 and asking about a grape flavored drink sold in a gorilla shaped container
//a drink that is sans booze

Oh and Magilla Gorilla unavailable for comment.

Oook.

Humans and great apes are part of the same hominid family, champions of ape rights say, stressing that the behaviour of apes resembles that of humans more than had previously been recognized.

When I rub myself sexually against someone like a bonobo, I get in big trouble, they don't. Will they when they get the same rights we have?

What? It's only fair!

Isn't the key word here "human" rights? As in, the rights possessed by humans? I'm all for believing in and enforcing all men being created equal, but this is just too much. Where does it stop?

Sorry, but they're just not human enough yet. They should try again in a few million years.

WhyteRaven74: Anyone in Lincoln Park wanna run over to the zoo and see if they still sell it?

I used to be in Lincoln Park.. but those bastards were just too Emo for me.

Fluid: Sorry, but they're just not human enough yet. They should try again in a few million years.

99% of your genome says otherwise.

Unless they're gay apes, then the Hell with 'em.

See my vest!

Why do I have the feeling that the NAACP is behind this somehow?

/window seat

sounds like a great idea
we can use them to fill the presidency and the
halls of congress

corporations can save assloads of cash by using bananas for bribes

/Pope Orangutan I
//kiss the ring, biatches

Four hands and prehensile lips? I'd hit it!

The UN doesn't have a particularly good track record protecting human rights.

I suggest we create a haven of humanity, for whenvthe time comes the apes rebel and humans return to barbarism, those that the Haven (that shall be named Avalon) will return and grant the apes swift death with our advanced technology of composite bows and catapults.

freudianslip84: Isn't the key word here "human" rights? As in, the rights possessed by humans? I'm all for believing in and enforcing all men being created equal, but this is just too much. Where does it stop?

They're talking about giving them something akin to human rights.. yes they aren't human but you have to use some form of common terminology as a reference point.

The Great Apes are very intelligent (Chimps and Bonobos have the intelligence of young children), show self-awareness as individuals, have incredible emotional ranges, etc.

Chimps from conflict zones in Africa exhibit post-traumatic stress syndrom and in the refuges that have been created for them need extensive rehabilitation to overcome it and return to a normal psychologcal state. In africa, in some areas, chimps get hunted for food... alot of the chimps in refuge areas are there because when they were young their mom was shot and butchered but the infants are too small to eat so they sell them as a pet sometimes in the bazaar in a cage right next to the butchered carcass of the mother. These chimps always end up being very psychologically scared from the experience and take years to recover, if they ever do.

Denying that our closest relatives in the animal kingdom don;t deserve some measure of protection from this sort of treatment is the height of arrogance in my opinion. As far as I know the only other two wild animals who come close to these levels of intelligence and emotion are Dolphins and Elephants.

Like someone else said above, I hate PETA, I'm not a vegetarian, etc... but I agree with the Project whole heartedly.

Question: How is signing a piece of paper going to stop the bushmeat trade, poaching, and deforestation/destruction of ape habitats in Africa?

A little rhetorical, maybe harsh, but this sounds like another case of groups with good intentions heading in the wrong direction or just looking for that token victory which in the long run is meaningless.

I'm not very big on animal rights but I'm of the mind set that we should leave chimps, apes and tangs in the jungle. Everytime I've gone to the zoo and look in their eyes ..."They farking know...". I'd be as pissed as they usually look too.

Dr. Zarius approves

I remember being struck by the great apes most of all last time I went to the National Zoo, particularly the gorillas. They certainly look intelligent in a way no other animal does -- they don't just have eyes, they look at you, look around and react to what they see. (So do cats, but cats are little furry alien critters that happen to be cute and cuddly, where gorillas and chimps are about a quarter-step from being fully human.)

entropic_existence, the actual intelligence of dolphins is hotly disputed, but they for some unaccountable reason really do seem to like humans in a way few other animals do. Elephants on the other hand definitely don't -- not long ago was a news story (I think I read it on Fark, actually) that elephants are destroying villages in Africa in what appear to be acts of pure vengeance. Humans have mistreated them for long enough that they now view gatherings of humans as a threat to be dealt with, rather than a curious phenomenon of those little hairless animals.

I think one of the saddest cases is the whales -- many hunted nearly to extinction, and now possibly becoming isolated from each other by noise pollution in the ocean. And they're also very social and very intelligent. Moby Dick aside, whales seem to bear us no ill will although they certainly would be more than justified. I wonder: if the whales decided to make a concerted effort, how much damage could they do to humanity by targeting oil tankers? Probably not much, and it'd be a suicide mission, but I could almost see them doing it in the spirit of the African elephant rampages.

Kensey: Elephants on the other hand definitely don't

Elephants free captive antelope (pops)

Given that chimps have DNA that is 98% human, use tools, and communicate in sign language, it's pretty hard to argue that primates have no ethical rights.

Unless of course you work in a research lab that tortures primates.