Happy
The elephant at the Bronx Zoo.
This is a very big deal for a lot of people. Lots of emotions, opinions, lawsuits surrounding Happy.
NYTimes obituary is intense (pasted)
RIP
Happy, Bronx Zoo Elephant at Center of Animal Rights Case, Is Dead at 55
Activists had sued in a bid to secure her the fundamental human right to bodily liberty. Zoo officials said she was well cared for and called the lawsuit frivolous.
Happy, a 55-year-old Asian elephant who had lived at the Bronx Zoo since 1977 and whose uncommon intelligence thrust her into an unusual legal dispute over whether she was entitled to a fundamental human right, has been euthanized, zoo officials said.
Happy’s death, on Tuesday, came after a period of hospice care prompted by a recent deterioration in her health, including a falloff in kidney or liver function, zoo officials said in a news release late Wednesday.
“Following ongoing assessments of her condition and quality of life, this difficult decision was made when it became clear that her age-related conditions had progressed,” Craig Piper, the zoo’s interim director, said in a statement.
Nearly four years ago, New York’s highest court rejected, by a 5-to-2 vote, an animal-advocacy organization’s argument that Happy was being illegally detained at the zoo and should be transferred to an elephant sanctuary.
The ruling ended what appeared to be the first case of its kind in the English-speaking world to reach so high a court.
The organization behind the case, the Nonhuman Rights Project, had argued that the bedrock legal principle of habeas corpus, which people assert to protect their bodily liberty and to contest illegal confinement, should be extended to autonomous, cognitively complex animals like elephants.
The group, which had failed to win freedom for two chimpanzees under the same concept, took Happy on as its cause in 2018, after she distinguished herself as especially cognitively advanced.
In 2005, she passed a mirror self-recognition test, touching an X marked on her head with her trunk while looking in a mirror, making her the first elephant to show such a degree of self-awareness. (At that point, only human infants, apes and dolphins had passed such tests before.)
Christopher Berry, the Nonhuman Rights Project’s executive director, said in a statement on Thursday that the elephant’s “suffering” would “not be in vain.”
“Happy will always be remembered as the elephant who opened the courtroom doors for legal rights for animals,” Mr. Berry said. “Two judges from the New York Court of Appeals issued powerful dissenting opinions in support of her right to liberty.”
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates the Bronx Zoo, had labeled the lawsuit an act of “blatant exploitation.” Happy, zoo officials said as the case proceeded, was “well cared for by professionals with decades of experience and with whom she is strongly bonded.”
In announcing Happy’s death, the society reiterated its position that the lawsuit was frivolous, saying in the news release that it had “always focused on what was best for Happy’s health and psychological well-being.”
Patty, a 57-year-old Asian elephant who officials said was doing well, is now the sole elephant still on exhibit at the zoo.
The median life expectancy for female Asian elephants is approximately 45 years in North American zoo facilities, according to the conservation society, which decided to stop acquiring elephants 20 years ago in favor of helping endangered members of the species in the wild.
“Any future decisions regarding Patty’s care and management will continue to be made based on her individual welfare needs and in alignment with Association of Zoos and Aquariums and other professional standards,” the society said.
Happy was born in the early 1970s, probably in Thailand, and captured at a young age and brought to the United States, where she wound up at a Florida petting zoo with six other elephants, each named for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” characters.
She and another of the seven, Grumpy, also a female, were acquired by the Bronx Zoo, and they lived with an older female, Tus, in the Elephant House. They were trained to do tricks, give rides to children and perform at “Elephant Weekends.”
Eventually the three were moved to the zoo’s Wild Asia section, where they joined Patty and a second elephant, Maxine.
Tus died in 2002. Soon after, Patty and Maxine attacked Grumpy, fatally wounding her. Happy could no longer be kept with them. A younger female elephant that was brought in to be her new companion soon died.
From then on, Happy was separated from Patty — and, until she died, Maxine — by a fence that divided the zoo’s roughly two-acre, tree-lined elephant enclosure.
To animal-rights activists, the fence was a cruel impediment to Happy’s ability to live in a way that was true to her nature. Elephants are highly social creatures. They roam in herds; communicate with one another through low-frequency rumbles and the slight angling of their bodies; and engage in mourning behaviors when one of their number dies.
Zoo officials insisted that Happy was not isolated and that she and Patty touched trunks, smelled each other and communicated.
In 2020, a Bronx trial court judge rejected a habeas petition that the Nonhuman Rights Project filed in its lawsuit on Happy’s behalf.
An appellate court affirmed that ruling, setting the stage for the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to take up the case. A month after hearing oral arguments, the court issued its ruling in June 2022.
“While no one disputes the impressive capabilities of elephants, we reject petitioner’s arguments that it is entitled to seek the remedy of habeas corpus on Happy’s behalf,” Janet DiFiore, the chief judge then, wrote, saying the law applied to humans, not animals.
Judge Rowan D. Wilson, who now leads the court, said in a lengthy dissent that he and his colleagues had a duty “to recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society.”
Happy became the subject of fresh scrutiny by animal-rights activists two years ago after she was not seen by zoo visitors for several months. Zoo officials insisted she was fine and staying inside by choice. A federal Department of Agriculture inspection supported the zoo’s position, and she eventually returned to public view.
In Happy’s last weeks, zoo officials said, staff members monitored her behavior and overall health while providing specialized supportive care. Despite those efforts, her condition continued to worsen. A necropsy revealed several large, inoperable uterine tumors and arthritis, which members of the zoo’s veterinary team believe contributed to her decline.
Happy, Mr. Piper said, “died peacefully surrounded by the keepers, curators and veterinarians who have cared for her, some for more than 30 years,” with “access to the elephant barn and outdoor yard spaces where she was most comfortable, with the choice of where she wanted to be.”
He noted that she was known for her “hearty appetite.”
“Sometimes,” he added, “she would even tuck snacks in her ear to save for later.”
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