Just because I'm an Ape, it doensn't mean I don't have Feelings!

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For a long time now, researchers such as Jane Goodall have demonstrated how the closest animal relatives to humans - chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans - share many human attributes. Like people, apes are also sentient thinking beings with complex personalities. They also possess considerable self-awareness and lead rich emotional lives. There was a historic vote last month in the Spanish parliament. Support was given for “The Great Ape Project”. This will give rights to life, liberty, and protection from torture to the great apes. It is the first time that a national parliament has declared that an animal possesses rights like a person. The resolution allows great apes to be kept in captivity for the purpose of conservation, but only under optimal conditions. It is hoped that the resolution will encourage the protection of great apes throughout the world and prevent them from maltreatment, slavery, torture and extinction. As Peter Singer singer writes in in the Guardian (Friday July 18, 2008): “If we regard human rights as something possessed by all human beings, no matter how limited their intellectual or emotional capacities may be, how can we deny similar rights to great apes”?