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New York's top court has rejected an attempt to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo, declaring that the animal is not a person and can therefore not be released through a habeas corpus proceeding, which is a way for people to challenge illegal confinement.
| 15 Jun 2022
New York's top court has rejected an attempt to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo, declaring that the animal is not a person and can therefore not be released through a habeas corpus proceeding, which is a way for people to challenge illegal confinement.
“While no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion, a writ of habeas corpus is intended to protect the liberty of human beings and does not apply to a nonhuman animal like Happy,” read the decision from chief judge Janet DiFiore.
“A determination that Happy, an elephant, may invoke habeas corpus to challenge her confinement at the Bronx Zoo - a confinement both authorised and, by all indications, compliant with state and federal statutory law and regulations - would have an enormous destabilising impact on modern society.”
The case was brought to court by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), which has spent four years trying to release Happy to one of two elephant sanctuaries in the US.
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