Boogie the monkey is suffering and needs our help. Boogie is a Japanese macaque confined at Bervie Zoo, a roadside zoo in Kincardine, Ontario, where he spends his days alone in a small barren cage—biting himself, pacing, and spinning in circles repeatedly.
Animal Justice first witnessed Boogie’s suffering in 2022 when we released Canada’s largest-ever zoo exposé, which included nearly every zoo in Ontario. The troubling footage of Boogie pacing and biting himself was featured on CTV investigative affairs program W5, highlighting a crisis of cruelty brought on by lack of regulation and enforcement in Ontario’s zoos.
We visited Bervie Zoo again in 2023, and most recently in 2024, but despite filing complaints with Ontario’s Animal Welfare Services, nothing seems to have changed. Boogie is still alone in the same tiny cage, and his troubling behaviours continue.
Watch the Video
Repetitive Movements Indicate Suffering
Boogie’s constant biting, pacing and spinning are what is called “stereotypic behaviour.” Stereotypy is common in animals trapped in unnatural environments inside zoos, and is typically a sign of mental anguish from the stress of confinement, including:
- Lack of environmental enrichment: Zoos often fail to provide the complex, stimulating environments necessary to encourage the natural behaviour of captive wildlife.
- Restricted movement: Most zoo enclosures are much smaller than the natural habitats animals would roam in the wild. Limited space can prevent animals from expressing their full range of behaviours, leading to boredom and frustration.
- Social isolation: Many animals, like macaques, are highly social and rely on interactions with others of their species for mental stimulation and well-being.
- Chronic stress: The unnatural conditions of captivity, such as being on display to the public, or being exposed to unfamiliar sounds and smells, can cause chronic stress.
“…when you see stereotypic behaviour, it basically means the animals have had poor welfare over their whole life.”
-Dr. Georgia Mason, director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph (from CTV’s W5)
Macaques are sensitive and social beings. In the wild, they lead rich lives in groups of 20-50, where they exhibit behaviours such as playing and grooming. In their natural habitats, Japanese macaques like Boogie would typically spend long hours foraging for food in a wide range of environments, including temperate, subtropical, and high-altitude forests, near water sources such as coastal areas and rivers, or rugged, rocky terrains.
Lack of Zoo Laws & Failure of Enforcement
In Canada, zoos are poorly regulated, and there are no federal laws or mandatory inspections to protect animals in these facilities. Ontario is the roadside zoo capital of the country, and its laws are so weak that there are no licence or permit requirements to open a zoo full of wild and exotic animals—making it nearly impossible for authorities to shut down a zoo, no matter how badly the animals are suffering. The lack of laws has allowed roadside zoos with poor standards to proliferate across the province.
But even when there are clear legal violations regarding the cruel treatment of animals, law enforcement doesn’t always hold abusive zoos accountable for animal suffering.
#SaveBoogie: Send Him to Sanctuary!
Animal Justice has filed multiple legal complaints with provincial Animal Welfare Services in recent years about Boogie’s condition, but so far they have failed to remove him.
Bervie Zoo is well-known to authorities. In 2022, Animal Welfare Services seized dozens of animals from Bervie, and the zoo now faces 21 outstanding animal welfare charges for mistreating dozens of animals—including, lemurs, macaws, pigs, porcupines, and a baboon named Bruno, who was sent to live out the rest of his days at Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary in Sunderland, Ontario. We want the same future for Boogie, too.
Help #SaveBoogie from a life of suffering alone in a tiny cage. Please urge authorities to transfer Boogie to a sanctuary immediately!
