Tommy the Chimpanzee Dies Alone in His Prison Cell

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?
O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
~ Psalm 22:1-2, NKJV ~

These must have been the final thoughts of Tommy the Chimpanzee, who was found dead, curled up in his sleeping spot, alone in his prison cell in February 2022 according to a USDA official (Source: the NonHuman Rights Project (NhRP)).

I have followed the story of Tommy for many years. I am deeply saddened by the news of Tommy’s death and outraged at the blatant inhumane treatment he underwent throughout his life. One would think it would be illegal—but it isn’t—because animals are considered mere human property. They have no legal rights to be treated humanely—with love, kindness and mercy. Though many fought hard to free Tommy, he died in a cage. For the sake of all the animals still imprisoned and crying out for help, Tommy’s story must be told.

Tommy’s Story

According to the NhRP website, Tommy was “[b]elieved to have been born in the early 1980s … [and] raised from infancy by Dave Sabo, former proprietor of “Sabo’s Chimps.” Tommy appeared as “Goliath” in the 1987 film Project X, according to Sabo. Animal activist and TV icon Bob Barker and others alleged that trainers beat the chimpanzees used in the film with blackjacks and clubs. After Sabo died in 2008, “ownership” of at least some of the chimpanzees passed to the Laverys.” It is here that Steven Wise, lawyer and legal scholar, first met Tommy in 2013. Tommy was living alone in a cage in a shed on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, New York. One wall of his cement cell was painted to look like a jungle with a TV set up outside the enclosure. The NhRP website describes Tommy’s experience:

“The irony was horrific: this chimpanzee had spent much of his life performing for humans in the entertainment industry, including on a film set where chimpanzees were alleged to have been beaten into submission with blackjacks, clubs, and cattle prods. Now, the people who “owned” him were providing him with human entertainment as if this could ever make up for the loss of his freedom and the company of other chimpanzees. Later, Tommy’s owner even claimed in a media interview that Tommy liked being alone.”

Did Tommy like living alone as Mr. Lavery suggests? Nothing could be further from the truth! Countless studies by Jane Goodall and many other sources tell us how chimpanzees live in complex family units in the wild and are highly social, much like humans. It is in their genes, as chimpanzees and humans share 98.8% the same DNA. We also can derive from our own experience, if we have ever been around animals or share our homes with them, that animals feel emotion in much the same way humans do. They suffer just as we would if we were in their circumstances.

On December 2, 2013, NhRP first petitioned the court for a common law writ of habeas corpus in New York state on behalf of Tommy. According to the case timeline on the NhRP website:

“No one has ever demanded a legal right for a nonhuman animal, until now,” says NhRP President Steven M. Wise of our first of its kind lawsuit, which is based on abundant, robust scientific evidence of chimpanzees’ self-awareness and autonomy.” (Source: NhRP website)

Over the years NhRP fought hard and persistently with the court to free Tommy so he could live out his life with other chimpanzees in as natural an environment as is possible in a sanctuary. To see a timeline of Tommy’s case, visit their website. Also, many petitions over the years have been filed on his behalf from various animal rights organizations asking the court and his owners to free him.

In 2017, NhRP filed for a motion with the First Judicial Department for permission to appeal to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals; it was denied. In March 2018, a group of prominent philosophers submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the NhRP motion to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals. The NhRP also announced that the legal advocacy organization at the Center for Constitutional Rights and law professors Laurence H. Tribe, Justin Marceau, and Samuel R. Wiseman had submitted amicus curiae briefs in support of the NhRP’s motion for permission to appeal. On May 8, 2018, the New York Court of Appeals denied NhRP their motion for permission to appeal. According to the NhRP:

Judge Fahey concludes his opinion with a striking personal reflection: “In the interval since we first denied leave to the Nonhuman Rights Project, I have struggled with whether this was the right decision. Although I concur in the Court’s decision to deny leave to appeal now, I continue to question whether the Court was right to deny leave in the first instance. The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life around us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it. While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a ‘person,’ there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing.”

After the Court of Appeals declined to hear Tommy’s case, and before NhRP litigation could conclude, media outlets began to report that Tommy had disappeared from Gloversville. The NhRP then decided to focus its efforts on demonstrating Tommy was moved out of state and in finding his exact location.  

Patrick Lavery, his owner, disingenuously claimed in interviews not to remember where he sent Tommy, but private investigations conducted by the NhRP along with federal and state records requests showed that Tommy had been moved out of state. In 2022, NhRP announced they believed Tommy was imprisoned in a roadside zoo in Wallace, Michigan, USA, called the DeYoung Family Zoo. On September 21, 2015, the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD) approved transfer papers between Mr. Lavery and the DeYoung family. NhRP petitions were made to MDARD, calling on them to conduct an emergency inspection at the zoo.  

NhRP was in the midst of final preparations to bring new litigation in the courts of Michigan when on November 30, 2023, in response to emails NhRP supporters sent to MDARD with their concerns about Tommy, USDA records were sent to NhRP providing an exchange between representatives from MDARD and the USDA. NhRP was devastated and outraged to learn Tommy had died. The exchange delivered suggests that Tommy passed away much as he had lived: alone and vulnerable, with no one to comfort him except himself.

Should Tommy and other animals have rights?

In a quote by the NhRP, “The photograph of Tommy [above] … has circulated around the world, and the lawsuit we brought on Tommy’s behalf–the first to demand an actual, enforceable right for a nonhuman animal–has catalyzed a global debate about the irrationality and injustice of denying legal rights to nonhuman animals. Nowhere is the impact of Tommy’s case more evident than in the passionate rejection of Tommy’s rightlessness by a judge on New York’s highest court the second time our arguments came before him: “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. Tommy’s death shows us how animal welfare fails nonhuman animals—everything that happened to him was legal. This is why nonhuman animals need legal rights, and why we’ve been relentlessly fighting for their rights in court.”

Legal rights is a complex concept. According to a google search definition, legal rights are “a set of rules and principles that protect individuals from harm and ensure that they are treated fairly and justly under the law. The goal of legal rights is to provide individuals with the ability to live their lives freely, without fear of persecution or discrimination. They are designed to protect people from abuses of power by governments, organizations, and other individuals, and are also intended to ensure that people have access to basic necessities such as food/water, shelter, and healthcare.  They are an essential component of a democratic society … fundamental to the protection of human dignity and freedom.” There are different interpretations as to where legal rights come from. Some people believe that they are granted by the society or government. Others believe that our rights are given to us by God.  

I am a proponent that any so-called “rights” we have are given to us by God. According to the Psalms, animals are not the property of humans–they belong to God!

 “[F]or every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine… the world is mine, and all that is in it” (Psalm 50:10-12, NIV).

And Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains.” Everything belongs to God. Humans were placed over the animals and the earth to be faithful and wise stewards and care for them as God would himself. It is about our role.

The Bible teaches us that when God created the world, He created mankind in His image. As Emil Brunner describes it, it is not that man has the “image” of God, but that man “images” God—that is—man embodies God’s character. The most well-known description of God’s character given us in the Bible is found in 2 Corinthians 13:4-8a: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. The Bible says God is love (1 John 4:8;16), that love is an essential part of His nature and character. God’s love is perfect, unconditional, sacrificial, and it is the standard by which all other forms of love and goodness should be measured, “The LORD is just! He is my rock! There is no evil in him!”  (Psalm 92:15, NLT).

This is the measuring stick by which mankind ought to judge everything he does with regard to that which God gave him dominion over. It is not essentially about legal rights, but about appropriate application of the principles by which we all should live and govern, with God as our Supreme Judge. Since people are yet separated from God, any laws that are created to mitigate the actions of sinfulness, any kind of institution or government, should be framed upon these principles. The goal should be to provide people and animals freedom to live their lives without fear of harm, being imprisoned or used in any way contrary to what God intended for them. Any set of legal principles should be designed to protect people and animals from abuses of power by governing bodies, organizations, or individuals, and should also ensure that people and animals have access to basic necessities such as food/water, shelter, and healthcare that does not use animals for experimentation to gain better health for humans, but instead turns to more humane alternatives that are just as effective. These governing rules or principles are an essential component of a society that endeavors to put God on the throne of our lives and make Him Lord over our nations.

Are We Answering the Call?

There are no words that describe the depth of sorrow I have felt, just a gut-wrenching sense of powerlessness and overwhelming grief when envisioning what Tommy went through. No living being should ever have to experience what he did. The heartlessness of mankind is astounding, sickening, appalling, unjust, and incredibly sad. I pray that like with Lolita the Orca who died in August 2023 after 53 years in captivity, Tommy’s story will strike some chords, open eyes and hearts, and begin to change the trajectory on the subject of animal welfare and animal sentience. I also hope Tommy’s story inspires people to impact change by signing petitions, getting involved in animal rights/welfare organizations, boycotting entertainment venues that exploit animals, and by showing what it means to stand apart and follow the way of truth: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2, NKJV).

There is a great need for animals to have the basic right to be treated kindly, lovingly, justly, and with mercy. At its core, this means granting them freedom from abuse, neglect, torture, or anything cruel that mankind envisions and does to them. Animal cruelty is completely against moral and ethical principles of love, is unconscionable, and is an abomination to our mutual Creator. So why is it completely legal? Why do our laws protect freedom to be cruel rather than freedom from cruelty?

As Jane Goodall so accurately puts it, “To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.” Instead of ignoring the cruelty of our own hands, let us confess it, be horrified by it, and turn from it. As it says in the Prophets, “The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you” (Habakkuk 2:17a, NIV). The whole of creation is waiting for humanity to return to God’s image of lovingkindness:

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:18-21, NIV).

God sees the tears and hears the cries of every creature. The Savior tells us, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29, NIV). He created humans in His image and likeness to be His hands and feet that wipe away every tear and come to the rescue of those unjustly imprisoned: “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1, NIV).

Man was created to be a Christlike shepherd over all of His creatures. But when man only comes as a thief to steal, kill, and imprison the animals, who is there to answer the cries of Tommy and the many other animals held behind bars? Where is the image of God to help them in their distress and to break their heavy yoke of bondage? The opening words that describe Tommy’s dying cries should be an indictment against humanity as a whole for forsaking the good stewardship role God created us to fill.

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?
O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
~ Psalm 22:1-2, NKJV ~

Heavenly Father, we lift up every suffering creature continuing to live out Tommy’s story. We pray for mankind to turn from wickedness, and to create the kind of world that reflects Your essence in all that we do, that the whole world may be reconciled to You through love. We pray Tommy’s suffering and death will not be in vain. Let us wake up, hear the groaning, and be the hands that help instead of hurt. In Yeshua we pray, AMEN!

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Thank you for reading. Please like and share to spread Tommy’s story!  Thanks also to Craig Wescoe for editing! ~Kathy Dunn