It doesn’t matter how you imprison them, any normal elephant wouldn’t want to live in the Bronx Zoo, said the Nonhuman Rights Project’s founder and president, Steven Wise.
PRISCILLA DeGREGORY: ‘The animal rights group that famously tried — and failed — to get a pair New York primates the same legal right to freedom as humans has a new client: Bronx Zoo’s Happy the elephant.
The Nonhuman Rights Project announced Tuesday it is filing a suit against the zoo on behalf of the pachyderm, demanding the recognition of her “legal personhood and fundamental right to bodily liberty” as well as her transfer to an elephant sanctuary.
The group argues the elephant — best known as the first elephant to demonstrate self recognition in a mirror — is anything but “Happy” because she’s been isolated in captivity at the Zoo for 12 years, while the highly intelligent mammals are born to live in packs and roam free…
Happy, a 47-year-old Asian elephant captured in Thailand as an infant, first lost her longtime companion, Grumpy, when he was fatally injured by two other elephants in 2002. She was then paired with another elephant, Sammy, but he died of liver disease in 2006, and she’s been alone since then, according to the group…
“It doesn’t matter how you imprison them, any normal elephant wouldn’t want to live in the Bronx Zoo,” the Nonhuman Rights Project’s founder and president, Steven Wise, said at a press conference at the zoo Tuesday’. SOURCE…
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