Happy is a 50-year-old Asian elephant who has been held in captivity in the Bronx Zoo’s elephant exhibit for nearly half a century, the last 15 years of which she has been forced to live alone.
LAUREN CHAPLIN: The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a brief with New York’s highest court in our habeas corpus case demanding the right to bodily liberty of an elephant named Happy held alone in captivity in the Bronx Zoo… Happy is a 50-year-old Asian elephant who has been held in captivity in the Bronx Zoo’s one-acre elephant exhibit for nearly half a century, the last 15 years of which she has been forced to live alone. In 2005, she made scientific history as the first elephant to demonstrate self-awareness via the mirror test.
In May, the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the US—agreed to consider the NhRP’s arguments on behalf of Happy the elephant, thereby marking the first time in world history that the highest court of an English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a case that demands that a nonhuman animal be given a legal right…
The NhRP’s 14,000-word brief brings together centuries of case law including landmark common law and civil rights cases, the science of elephant cognition and behavior, the origin of legal rights, judicial rulings from outside the US that have granted rights to nonhuman animals, and ethical arguments against elephant captivity. The NhRP is urging the Court to end Happy’s imprisonment as a right-less legal “thing” and recognize her fundamental right to bodily liberty protected by the common law of habeas corpus. A ruling in Happy’s favor would require her release from the Bronx Zoo to an elephant sanctuary “where her autonomy may be realized to the greatest extent possible”…
Happy’s case has received support from the world-respected experts in elephant cognition and behavior, animal rights law, theology, and philosophy… A Change.org petition calling for Happy’s release from solitary confinement has nearly 1.4 million signatures and continues to grow… The Bronx Zoo and the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the Bronx Zoo, have until Aug. 23rd to file a reply, to which the NhRP will file our reply by Sept. 7th. The Court will not determine a date for oral arguments until after this last filing deadline. SOURCE…
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