.png)
Take Action to Help #FreeTommy
Nearly seven years ago, a chimpanzee was secretly transferred from a used trailer lot in New York to a roadside zoo in Michigan. According to all available evidence, the DeYoung Family Zoo is keeping this chimpanzee—known as Tommy when the Nonhuman Rights Project filed the world's first chimpanzee rights lawsuit on his behalf—out of sight and alone, without the necessary companionship of other chimpanzees. The DeYoung Family Zoo has never acknowledged that Tommy—now nearly 40 years old if he's still alive—is in their custody despite records that show he is, and little is known about his housing, care, and physical and mental condition. Tommy deserves to be released to a sanctuary, not imprisoned at a roadside zoo that has been the subject of recent allegations of missing and unaccounted for nonhuman animals and complaints about their living conditions.
Please urge Tim Boring, Director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development, to have the agency, which oversees the keeping of chimpanzees in the state, conduct an emergency inspection of the DeYoung Family Zoo to investigate serious concerns regarding Tommy's welfare.