© via REUTERS
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A bizarre lawsuit stirs the mood in the US. Because a high court will have to decide whether elephant Happy – who is depressed – can legally be considered a person. Depending on that answer, the elephant may have a completely different life ahead.
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Is an elephant legally a person? At least that’s the question that New York’s highest court had to deal with. The question is part of a dispute over the Asian elephant Happy, who resides at the Bronx Zoo.
Animal rights organization The Nonhuman Rights Project hopes to drastically improve Happy’s situation. The animal, about 50 years old, is locked up in the New York zoo and is said to be unhappy. The group wants to move her from the zoo, where she has lived since 1977, to one of the country’s two elephant sanctuaries where, lawyers say, she would have more space and interaction with other elephants. According to the organization, Happy is an “autonomous and cognitively complex animal that is entitled to protection from unlawful confinement, just like humans.” The zoo states that the elephant is well cared for and that holding it is not illegal.
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The history of the US is full of controversial arguments about who or what constitutes a person, philosophically and legally. Enslaved people were once counted as three-fifths of a person for determining taxes and congressional seats. Sometimes companies can be regarded as persons and also in state abortion schemes the personal issue is often the basis of the law.
According to The Nonhuman Rigths Project, Happy is indeed a person, because the animal is autonomous and intelligent and therefore has a right to physical freedom. The animal recognized itself in a mirror test in 2005. According to the lawyers, AT already indicates self-awareness.
The New York Court of Appeals is expected to rule on Happy’s case in the coming months.
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