Happy the Elephant Loses in Court

Happy the elephant has had her day in court, but that court decided she is still an animal and not a person with basic rights. She will continue living out her life in the Bronx Zoo.

The New York State Court of Appeals decided in a 5-2 decision that the principle of habeas corpus — which prevents unlawful confinement for human persons – does not apply to Happy, a female elephant in her fifties.

Had Happy been granted this basic right, her confinement in the zoo would have been challenged, especially by the Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the case to court in the first place, arguing that Happy would be happier in a sanctuary.

But the court stated that granting an elephant legal personhood “would have an enormous destabilizing impact on modern society,” according to the majority decision. “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.”

Two judges, Rowan Wilson and Jenny Rivera, wrote separate dissents defending Happy's claim to legal rights. Rivera wrote that Happy is being held in “an environment that is unnatural to her and that does not allow her to live her life.”

Happy was born in Thailand and captured at a very young age in the early 1970s. She came to the Bronx Zoo in 1977, after having done some hard time in a Florida petting zoo. She has never really known what it’s like to be a wild elephant, and now she’ll never know what it’s like to be a person.

Beaten but unbowed, the Nonhuman Rights Project continues its mission. Last month it asserted a habeas corpus on behalf of three elephants in a Fresno, California zoo. Following the loss in New York, the group said in a statement that it has “tremendous hope for a future where elephants no longer suffer as Happy has and where nonhuman rights are protected alongside human rights.”

Photo credit: Bebeto Matthews / AP