During a recent hearing, lawyers with NhRP will argue that the Bronx Zoo and the Wildlife Conservation Society “have unlawfully deprived Happy of her freedom, imprisoning her alone in an exhibit that is too small to meet the needs of Happy or any elephant.
On Saturday, April 30th, dozens of activists with the
Nonhuman
Rights Project (NhRP) staged a rally at the Bronx Zoo to demand that
the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which manages the zoo,
release a 51 year old Asian elephant named Happy to a sanctuary
after holding her captive in a small enclosure since 1977.
Happy was kidnapped from a forest in Thailand in 1971, and she has
lived at the Bronx Zoo for 45 years. Despite the fact that elephants
are highly social animals who travel long distances with their herds
each day, Happy lives by herself and splits her time between on a
one-acre plot of land and a windowless, concrete room.
NhRP, a nonprofit legal group that represents captive animals, staged the event in advance of Happy’s upcoming hearing at the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. During the hearing, lawyers with NhRP will argue that the Bronx Zoo and the Wildlife Conservation Society “have unlawfully deprived Happy of her freedom, imprisoning her alone in an exhibit that is too small to meet the needs of Happy or any elephant.”
If NhRP wins the case at the Court of Appeals, then the WCS would be forced to send her to one of the two elephant sanctuaries in the United States.
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