Monkey business: Wheaton native talks career in primate advocacy

For decades, the use of live chimpanzees in movies and scientific research was commonplace.

But thanks to the work of animal activists like former Wheaton resident Julia Gallucci, their participation in those arenas – and the abuse and unnatural lifestyle that accompanies them – has decreased dramatically.

Gallucci works as a primatologist for animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and previously founded the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest out of Seattle.

After growing up in Wheaton and attending Glenbard South High School, she moved to Los Angeles and has been on the West Coast ever since, advocating for the rights of chimpanzees, specifically those working in Hollywood.

She recently spoke with Suburban Life reporter Nathan Lurz about meeting chimpanzees that grew up in the laboratory system at a sanctuary and what life is really like at PETA.

Lurz: How did you get into your field?

Gallucci: The first time I saw a chimpanzee I was at the Lincoln Park Zoo [in Chicago] with my family. They took me there as a kid...I thought, "Wow, they look such like us!" I watched the way they communicated. I was curious where they came from and what they were doing at the zoo. It sparked an interest not just in animals but in primates and chimpanzees. ...

I moved to Washington state to go to Central Washington University. At the time they had a primatology program and had a sanctuary there with chimpanzees who had been taught American Sign Language. ...

During my time there – I'd always been kind of wanting to work with primates as an intellectual pursuit, but when I was studying a group of captive primates, I was not only studying them but also providing care for them. It's actually very intensive. ... [Chimpanzees are] very high maintenance, and their needs are so complex. They're not like a companion animal where you feed them and pet them and walk them.

Lurz: What led you toward activism?

Gallucci: I looked at them and thought, "It's really not fair that this happened to them. Their welfare has never really been a priority." In captivity, you see a lot of depression, anxiety, even symptoms of PTSD from chimpanzees who have been used in lab research who were taken away too early from their mothers. ...

Once I was done with my studies, I helped found a sanctuary, the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, that was dedicated to helping chimpanzees who had been retired from laboratories. We were helping individual chimpanzees who had been in terrible circumstances, being a place where their needs were cared for a little bit better.

Lurz: What exactly goes on behind the camera that makes the use of ape performers objectionable?

Gallucci: Well, the backstory is that they are taken away from their mothers after birth and assimilated into the human world, which is very damaging to them psychologically. The deprivation experience that they have as a result of being taken away from their mother is very far-reaching – chimpanzees in their 50s have been seen to exhibit signs of psychological distress. ...

If you are going to be bringing a chimpanzee around a human, you can't have them be a chimpanzee. ... One of the reasons they are used other than cute caricatures is that they have an appeal of "I can make this little chimpanzee live in a human home for a few years and train them to do human behaviors that are entertaining for people and that filmmakers want to see." But they can only do that for a few years, until they are 7 or 8, which is when they hit adolescence. Then they become very unpredictable, very strong and very aggressive.

There's not really anywhere for them to go. Sanctuaries try to take them when they can, but there's not a lot of funding and they're very expensive to care for.

Lurz: Through your work, you meet with filmmakers, producers, ad agencies and other groups. What has their reaction been thus far?

Gallucci: Luckily, we're in a time where instead of getting a chimpanzee, most filmmakers can choose to use CGI that's so good that even I am fooled sometimes. ... There's a growing awareness about the ethics I think of using chimpanzees and other wild animals as performers, and it's just not as accepted as it used to be. Ringling Bros. is even phasing out the use of elephants in their shows – people just don't want to see it any more. I think people see the inherent value of an animal as an individual, instead of just a prop for our entertainment.

Lurz: It sounds like you had a long career before joining PETA, an obviously very well-known organization. What has that experience for the last eight years been like?

Gallucci: People definitely view PETA as a more radical organization. It does a lot of media stunts to get their message out there, and frankly it's off-putting for people. And it does sometimes make it more difficult to get a meeting...but I think when they do meet me, they see I'm a normal person, and that's true with everyone that works at PETA by the way. It's a group of very educated, thoughtful people. ...

What I always want people to take away when I talk about chimpanzees and subprimates in the entertainment life is to think about what the animal's life must be like when they're not there, not on the film set – where they come from, where they're going to end up. Once people know about it, they get it. It's really just an education issue.