A Washington D.C.-based nonprofit is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to consider a lawsuit that seeks to remove seven chimpanzees from an Upper Peninsula zoo and to legally recognize the primates as persons.

The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed the request Dec. 1, urging the state's high court to reverse an appellate decision affirming a 2023 trial court ruling that the chimps at the DeYoung Family Zoo do not have the right to liberty under the state's habeas corpus laws, which deal with detention or imprisonment.

"It is simply impossible for chimpanzees to live a normal life appropriate for their species at a roadside zoo," NhRP said in the filing.

The zoo, located in Wallace, Michigan, near the Wisconsin state line in southern Menominee County, did not immediately return a messa

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