Elephants are NOT people, too.
That was the determination of a judge who ruled that Happy the Elephant can’t be sprung from the Bronx Zoo because she’s not legally “a person,” it was revealed Wednesday.
Bronx Supreme Court Judge Alison Tuitt dismissed the NonHuman Rights Project’s petition to grant the 48-year-old pachyderm “legal personhood” in order to move her to a 2,300-acre sanctuary.
“The court agrees that Happy is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty,” Tuitt wrote in the judgment. “[But] we are constrained by the case law to find that Happy is not a ‘person’ and not being illegally imprisoned.”
The animal rights group had argued that Happy is an “autonomous being” whose “liberty is being violated” by her cramped and lonesome quarters.
While Tuitt said she found their argument “extremely persuasive for transferring Happy,” she stopped short of allowing the relocation under laws against the unlawful imprisonment of humans.
The NonHuman Rights Project said the ruling was a giant step backward for mankind — and one it plans to challenge.
“We maintain the Court is not bound by precedent & look forward to appealing,” the group wrote on Twitter.
But the zoo cheered the decision, calling it common sense.
“The court supported The Bronx Zoo’s legal position and we believe this decision is in Happy’s best interests,” the zoo said in a statement. “This is the fifth case NhRP has lost seeking legal personhood for animals.”
Lawyers for the zoo have said the elephant is well cared for and that notion of granting her “legal personhood” is ludicrous.
In the 1970s, Happy was taken from her herd and sold as a calf for $800 to a safari company in California, according to NonHuman Rights. She was relocated to the zoo in 1977.