She has four limbs, expressive eyes and likes to stroll through greenery in New York City.
The advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project say yes: Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person.” The Bronx Zoo, where Happy resides, says no: Through an attorney, the zoo argues Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant “respected as the magnificent creature she is.”Happy has lived at the Bronx Zoo for 45 years.
“She has an interest in exercising her choices and deciding who she wants to be with, and where to go, and what to do, and what to eat,” project attorney Monica Miller told The Associated Press ahead of the oral arguments. “And the zoo is prohibiting her from making any of those choices herself.” The zoo and its supporters warn that a win for advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project could open the door to more legal actions on behalf of animals, including pets and other species in zoos."If there's going to entire be a rewrite and a granting to animals of rights that they never had before, shouldn't that be done by the Legislature?” Kenneth Manning, an attorney for zoo operator Wildlife Conservation Society, asked the judges.
Happy now lives in an enclosure adjacent to the zoo's other elephant, Patty. The zoo's attorney argued in court filings that Happy can swim, forage and engage in other behavior natural for elephants.
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Happy Is an Asian Elephant. But Is She Also a Person?She has four limbs, expressive eyes and likes to stroll through greenery in New York City. Happy, by species, is an Asian elephant. But is she also a person? That’s the question before New York’s highest court Wednesday in a closely watched case over whether a basic human right can be extended to an animal. Her advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project say yes: Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person.” The Bronx Zoo, where Happy resides, says no. The zoo argues Happy is neither imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant “respected as the magnificent creature she is.”
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