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Chimpanzee Personhood: Supporting Scientific Documentation, Jonathan Balcombe

Sentience Collection

The aim of this document is to provide scientific support for granting chimpanzees and bonobos the legal status of persons. The studies summarized here have been selected because they show these species to have levels of awareness, cognition, emotionality and virtue that rivals that of their hominid cousins, Homo sapiens. Chimps, like other great apes, have long-term relationships, grieve the loss of a loved-one, can solve complex puzzles, display a sense of justice, and can learn hundreds of signs and put them together in logical sentences.