From the News: Happy the elephant is NOT a person

Happy the elephant at Bronx Zoo is not a person, New York's top court rules

For a bit, I was tempted to call this the Zombie Elephant in the Courtroom.  You see, this lawsuit, initiated by the animal rights group the Nonhuman Rights Project, just would not die.  The case had been dismissed over and over again, and yet it kept bouncing back up into the courtroom.  This couldn't help but make me a little nervous, as it is a well known fact that if you ask enough people the same question for long enough, someone is eventually going to give you the answer that you want to hear (evidence: any child who has ever gone back and forth between mom and dad until getting what they want).

There is legal precedent in other countries - an orangutan in Argentina was deemed to be a "person" by the courts there.  But if we decide that animals (even of the most intelligent species) are people, that does more than cut out the legs from zoos and aquariums working to save species.  It poses an enormous challenge to every aspect of our interactions with animals.  Obvious ones that pop up are food, medicine, and research, areas from which I know many people would happily see animals removed.  But what about conservation, land use, and the relationship between different species of animals?  Is it just to remove an invasive species from an environment - lethally - in order to protect an imperiled native species?  What about managing a common native species that is overpopulating, such as white-tailed deer?  When wild animals need our help, such as in the case of needing rehab, they can't offer consent - so is it unjust to offer it?

The court split the vote 5-2, which is still 2 more than I would have liked, but I'll take it if it means the end to this ongoing drama.  One thing that they all agreed upon was that elephants and other animals, if not people, are certainly beings deserving of higher consideration than property.  "All can agree than an elephant is not a member of the Homo sapiens species," argued Judge Rowan Wilson, one of the dissenters.  "At the same time, an elephant is not a desk chair."