Court to rule: Does zoo elephant deserve basic human rights?

New York's highest court is set to determine whether Happy, a 47-year-old Asian elephant living at the Bronx Zoo, is being unlawfully imprisoned.

Nonhuman Rights Project, a nonprofit civil rights organization advocating for the legal personhood of great apes, elephants, dolphins and whales, filed its first petition against the zoo in 2018 “demanding recognition of Happy's legal personhood and fundamental right to bodily liberty and her release to an elephant sanctuary.”

On Wednesday, the New York Court of Appeals heard arguments on both sides for Happy's release from the zoo. The court will likely issue a decision in the next four to six weeks, representatives of both the NhRP and Bronx Zoo told CNN.

The NhRP's legal argument revolves around the idea of habeas corpus, which protects against unlawful imprisonment. They argue that at the Bronx Zoo, Happy is kept in the equivalent of solitary confinement, which they say is particularly cruel given that elephants are highly social creatures roaming huge swaths of territory in the wild.

“It's the nature of the detention and the nature of the species” that make Happy's conditions a violation of habeas corpus, Monica Miller, a lawyer with the NhRP, told CNN.

Happy, born in the wild in 1971, is one of two Asian elephants currently kept at the zoo, which are kept in separate but adjacent enclosures and are able to smell, see, and touch each other with their trunks through the fence.

The organization is pushing for Happy to be moved to an elephant sanctuary, where they say she would have more space, like she would in the wild, and have social contact with other elephants.

“Holding [elephants] captive and confined prevents them from engaging in normal, autonomous behavior and can result in the development of arthritis, osteoarthritis, osteomyelitis, boredom and stereotypical behavior,” elephant researcher Joyce Poole said in the organization's petition. “Held in isolation elephants become bored, depressed, aggressive, catatonic and fail to thrive.”

The NhRP has called for Happy to be released to either the The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee or the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California. Neither group is affiliated with the NhRP.

But the zoo argued to the contrary in their response. Happy has contact with another elephant and is cared for “by well-trained large animal veterinarians and by animal keepers who treat Happy with respect and kindness.” They emphasize the zoo is certified and Happy, like all the zoo's animal residents, is protected by the Animal Welfare Act.

Moreover, Happy and the other animals on whose behalf the NhRP has sued, did not ask for the NhRP's legal representation, the Bronx Zoo says. And she doesn't need it.

The NhRP's “concern is winning a legal argument, not what is best for Happy,” wrote the zoo in a public statement. “NRP is using Happy the same way they have used animals in other cases in their effort to upend centuries of habeas corpus law and impose their own world view that animals should not be in zoos.”

And the case also has broader legal implications, the zoo argues. Habeas corpus has never been applied to nonhuman animals in New York, says the zoo, and doing so would open the door to legal chaos and add greater strain on the state's court systems.