Court to weigh zoo elephant’s rights

SHOULD a female elephant have some of the same legal rights as humans?

That is the question New York state’s top court will consider this week, the latest development in a years-long push by an animal rights group to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo.

The 51-year-old Asian elephant has called the world-famous zoo home since 1977.

But four years ago, the Nonhuman Rights Project began asking New York courts to release Happy to one of two elephant sanctuaries in the US, saying she was being illegally imprisoned.

The group said Happy was entitled to habeas corpus, a legal process in which illegally detained people or someone acting on their behalf may inquire about the reason they are being held.

New York law does not define “person,” and the group said Happy should be recognised as one.

“Elephants are autonomous beings who possess complex cognitive abilities,” the group wrote in a 2018 petition. “Happy’s interest in exercising that autonomy and bodily liberty is as fundamental to her as it is to us.”

Happy has been kept alone in a 4 000m2 enclosure at the zoo since around 2006, court records show.

Prior efforts to grant legal personhood to animals, including chimpanzees, have been unsuccessful.

The Bronx Zoo, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, says Happy is well cared for, and moving her to a sanctuary would not serve her interests.