As you may know, the chimpanzees at the DeYoung Family Zoo are barely visible to the public—and in the eyes of the law. In fact, other than one chimpanzee named Louie, all of the others appear to be nameless, which is why we refer to them in our complaint as Prisoners B-G. As outlined in our complaint, the available evidence suggests they’re largely confined to barren, concrete-floored cages behind closed doors, living in conditions known to cause suffering to these self-aware, autonomous beings.
In addition to this hearing being the first of its kind in Michigan, it’s also personally important to me. This is because the NhRP’s first client Tommy was transferred to the DeYoung Family Zoo in 2015 from a cage on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, New York. Unbeknownst to the NhRP, this transfer occurred while our litigation on behalf of Tommy was ongoing. So you might wonder, then, why Tommy isn’t part of this litigation. The answer is tragic. In late 2023, less than a week before we filed our lawsuit in Michigan, we received long-awaited records indicating Tommy died “curled up in his sleeping spot” inside a building at the DeYoung Family Zoo.
How can Tommy’s life and death be so hidden from public view? Very simply. Tommy was considered a legal “thing.” He had no more rights than the TV kept just outside the cage on the used trailer lot where he spent much of his life. I was proud to be part of the fight for Tommy’s right to liberty then, and I’m proud to be part of the fight for the DeYoung Prisoners’ right to liberty now.
Having been a lawyer with the NhRP from the very early days, I’ve seen what we can do when we come together to raise awareness of the suffering caused by our clients’ rightlessness and their need for justice. For example, in 2018, before it was known that Tommy had been moved out of the jurisdiction of the New York courts, a judge on the state’s highest court wrote of his rightlessness:
“Does an intelligent nonhuman animal who thinks and plans and appreciates life as human beings do have the right to the protection of the law against arbitrary cruelties and enforced detentions visited on him or her? This is not merely a definitional question, but a deep dilemma of ethics and policy that demands our attention. To treat a chimpanzee as if he or she had no right to liberty protected by habeas corpus is to regard the chimpanzee as entirely lacking independent worth, as a mere resource for human use, a thing the value of which consists exclusively in its usefulness to others. Instead, we should consider whether a chimpanzee is an individual with inherent value who has the right to be treated with respect.”
This hearing in Michigan represents an important opportunity to encourage the justice system to act with courage and recognize these chimpanzees as the autonomous beings they are, instead of leaving them to suffer without freedom in a state of legal invisibility. To deny them the right to liberty merely because they were born chimpanzees is unjust, arbitrary, and biased. We look forward to urging the appellate court to right this incredible wrong.
