The Animal Welfare Act is farcical in how little it does for nonhuman animals. Essentially, as long as the DeYoung Family Zoo is keeping the chimpanzees alive, the DeYoung Family Zoo is meeting these standards–no matter the injustice of the chimpanzees’ lives.
"Visiting" Louie at the DeYoung Family
Zoo
The narrative of our client Louie’s life unfolds the same way the
narratives of so many exploited nonhuman animals do: in the pages of
inspection reports authored by the Animal & Plant Health Inspection
Service, an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture.
IIn November of 2023, the NhRP received nearly 700 pages of records
in response to a Freedom of Information Act request we submitted to
the USDA in May of 2023 regarding the DeYoung Family Zoo–a miserable
roadside zoo in Michigan I personally visited in August of 2023.
The first report that mentions Louie is from 2015. At that time,
Louie was five years old and already being kept in solitary
confinement.
In the 2015 report, the reader learns that the DeYoung Family Zoo
has “owned” Louie since he was six weeks old. No mention is made of
where Louie was born, who his parents were, or (as online photos and
videos show) that the DeYoung Family Zoo kept Louie on a leash and
used him in photo opportunities and interactions with zoo patrons
until he was at least two.
The second report that mentions Louie is from 2016. By this point,
the zoo had acquired another chimpanzee, but Louie was kept separate
from him because of behavioral issues that shouldn’t have been
surprising considering Louie’s forced isolation.
In a 2017 report, the reader learns through an animal welfare
complaint filed by an unknown individual that Louie was still
allegedly being housed “alone, in a small space, and unable to
socialize with other animals.” The complaint describes how Louie’s
cage was padded with concrete and that he was exhibiting repetitive,
stereotypical behavior (a sign of deep psychological stress caused
by captivity). APHIS reported that it couldn’t confirm the
allegations during the time of its inspection and subsequently
surmised that Louie was in good health.
In 2018, APHIS stated that Louie “is still singularly housed” but
that he had “access to a room inside the [zoo] owner’s home.” As
chimpanzee experts state in their affidavits and declarations on
behalf of our chimpanzee clients, humans are no substitute for the
rich social lives chimpanzees share with members of their own
species, but unsurprisingly, APHIS appears to have accepted a room
in a human home as such a substitute.
The 2018 report also contains a paragraph titled “Unsocialized
Chimpanzee,” which focuses on Louie not getting along with other
chimpanzees. The zoo’s apparent solution for helping Louie was
governed by the same backward logic the captive animal industry
always employs––bring even more members of a species into an
impoverished environment to try to ameliorate the suffering of the
nonhuman animal who’s isolated.
"Visiting" Louie at the DeYoung Family
Zoo
In 2021, APHIS reported that all the chimpanzees at the DeYoung
Family Zoo (including an additional five chimpanzees the zoo had
acquired) are “accounted for” and “appropriately being cared for in
accordance with the Animal Welfare Act Standards.” As many NhRP
supporters are aware, the Animal Welfare Act is farcical in how
little it does for nonhuman animals. Essentially, as long as the
DeYoung Family Zoo is keeping the chimpanzees alive, the DeYoung
Family Zoo is meeting these standards–no matter the injustice of the
chimpanzees’ lives.
What’s perhaps most telling about these records is what they don’t
include. Reading them, you’d never know that Louie, like all
chimpanzees, is an autonomous being with an inner life, an
individual perspective, his own preferences, and a psychologically
painful history that deserves a complex accounting. This is because
the USDA sees Louie as a “thing,” a commercial good, not a thinking,
feeling being who can remember the past, feel trapped in the
present, and imagine a future where he’s finally free.
As far as available public records go, this is where Louie’s story,
and the stories of all seven chimpanzees imprisoned in the DeYoung
Family Zoo, leave off–for now. With your support, we’re fighting for
the DeYoung Prisoners’ right to liberty and release to a sanctuary.
With this right, the next chapter in their narratives will be
completely different, and they’ll finally be free.
In December, a Michigan trial court judge denied the NhRP’s habeas
corpus complaint because she believes chimpanzees are not legal
persons under Michigan’s common law of habeas corpus. This is
legally wrong. We’ll be filing an appeal at the end of February.