The NhRP filed a habeas corpus petition on Happy’s behalf in October 2018, seeking recognition of her personhood and right to liberty and her release to a sanctuary.
NhRP: ‘The Bronx Supreme Court has granted the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) its request for a temporary restraining order that prevents the Bronx Zoo from moving Happy the elephant out of New York State before an Oct. 21st hearing in her historic elephant rights case. The NhRP sought the order on Monday after legal counsel for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo, refused to agree not to move Happy from New York before the upcoming hearing.
As detailed in an emergency affirmation, this refusal represents a marked departure from the Bronx Zoo’s previous assurance that it had no intention of moving Happy, who has been held in captivity in the zoo’s roughly one-acre elephant exhibit for over forty years, the last 13 of which she has spent alone. Removal of Happy from New York would strip the New York courts of jurisdiction and prevent the NhRP from obtaining its requested habeas corpus order requiring Happy’s release to either The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee or the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California…
The NhRP filed a habeas corpus petition on Happy’s behalf in October 2018, seeking recognition of her personhood and right to liberty and her release to a sanctuary. The lawsuit is supported by world-renowned elephant experts, including Dr. Joyce Poole, who wrote in a recent op-ed that “the Bronx Zoo’s exhibit is too small to meet the needs of Happy or any elephant”…
Justice Tuitt last week presided over nearly five hours of argument in Happy’s case. On Oct. 21st, the NhRP will argue—among other pending motions and the core merits of Happy’s habeas corpus petition—a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the Bronx Zoo from moving Happy out of state until the case is resolved’. SOURCE…
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