Happy the elephant isn't a person, top NY court rules

Happy the Elephant isn’t considered a person being illegally deprived of liberty at the Bronx Zoo, and ordering her release “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society,” New York State’s highest court ruled on Tuesday.

By a vote of 5-2, the state Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling rejecting an animal rights group’s attempt to apply to nonhuman animals like Happy the writ of habeas corpus — a cornerstone of Western law, dating to the 12th century, allowing a challenge to imprisonment — and send her to a sanctuary.

The court's chief judge, Janet DiFiore, wrote that “while no one disputes that elephants are intelligent beings deserving of proper care and compassion,” the writ of habeas corpus “is intended to protect the liberty right of human beings to be free of unlawful confinement,” and so “it has no applicability to Happy, a nonhuman animal who is not a ‘person’ subjected to illegal detention.”

She added: “Indeed, followed to its logical conclusion, such a determination would call into question the very premises underlying pet ownership, the use of service animals, and the enlistment of animals in other forms of work.”

The case, which dates to 2018, is the Nonhuman Rights Project Inc. v. James J. Breheny, director of the Bronx Zoo, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the zoo.

Judge Jenny Rivera, in dissent, wrote of Happy: “She is held in an environment that is unnatural to her and that does not allow her to live her life as she was meant to: as a self-determinative, autonomous elephant in the wild. Her captivity is inherently unjust and inhumane. It is an affront to a civilized society, and every day she remains a captive — a spectacle for humans — we, too, are diminished.” 

The Wildlife Conservation Society didn’t return a message seeking comment.

One of Happy’s lawyers, Elizabeth Stein, a Manhasset Hills native, said that while she’s disappointed in the ruling, she takes heart in the two dissenting judges’ opinions, which she said would be invoked in future litigation on behalf of nonhuman animals.

“It is a sad day for Happy, because justice was not served, she was denied justice in this decision, because if justice prevailed, as it should have, her right would have been recognized, and she would have been sent to a sanctuary.”

Lauren Choplin, a spokeswoman for the Nonhuman Rights Project, said the organization has filed 10 petitions on behalf of 11 clients in three states, including New York, Connecticut and California. Four are chimpanzees and seven are elephants.

Stein said that the organization has not prevailed in any such lawsuits, yet.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.