As we’ve stressed since the beginning of our fight for the legal personhood and right to liberty of chimpanzees and elephants, this total lack of oversight or consequence is exactly what can and does routinely happen when these self-aware, autonomous nonhuman beings are treated as mere “things” to be bought, sold, traded, confined, hidden, and exploited.
“I’ve never been able to shake the profoundly depressing thought of
Tommy sitting alone and watching TV, day after day after day, like a
prisoner in solitary confinement. Surely, we as a society can do better.
Certainly, we owe chimps and other animals more.”
– Chris Churchill, “Where is Tommy the Chimp?”
Chris Churchill—”one of the most well-known names, and faces, at the
[Albany] Times Union”—has just published a column on the unknown whereabouts
of our first chimpanzee client Tommy. As the NhRP’s Courtney Fern told Chris
in an interview, Tommy’s treatment and seeming disappearance illustrate the
inadequacy of animal protection regulations in the United States: so far
neither multiple public records requests nor multiple private investigators
have been able to confirm, at least with 100% certainty, where Tommy is,
while Tommy’s former owner claims he can’t remember where he sent him.
As we’ve stressed since the beginning of our fight for the legal personhood
and right to liberty of chimpanzees and elephants, this total lack of
oversight or consequence is exactly what can and does routinely happen when
these self-aware, autonomous nonhuman beings are treated as mere “things” to
be bought, sold, traded, confined, hidden, and exploited.
Tommy the chimpanzee was the unwitting focus of a lawsuit that attempted to
establish new legal rights for animals. But where is he now?
— Times Union
(@timesunion) April 13, 2021
This column is not the first Chris has dedicated to Tommy. We thank him
for his continued interest in Tommy’s story and compassion for his plight.
We also appreciate his inclusion of an excerpt from the historic and
powerful opinion issued by New York Court of Appeals Judge Eugene M. Fahey
in Tommy and Kiko’s cases. In it, Judge Fahey wrote that the question of
nonhuman animals’ legal personhood and rights constitutes “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.”
You can help by sharing the column; liking and commenting on this tweet;
and, especially if you live in New York, sending a
letter
to the editor thanking the author and publication for telling
Tommy’s story.
We will have further actions planned for Tommy based on new information we
are currently assessing.
Thank you as always!
Return to: Litigation