happy elephant bronx zoo
Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" feeds inside the zoo's Asia habitat. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
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By Larry Keane

Back in October, we were amazed to see that a court was taking up the question of whether a Bronx Zoo elephant was being illegally detained because the animal, as an “extraordinarily complex” creature, should have human rights.

Today we are happy to report that “Happy,” the Asian elephant, remains an elephant. Bronx Supreme Court Judge Alison Tuitt dismissed the lawsuit brought against the Bronx Zoo by the extremist group the Nonhuman Rights Project.

This is the fifth time the group has lost a fight to claim legal personhood for animals. They seem undeterred by their past failures so an appeal would seem likely, as do future lawsuits.

Bronx Zoo Elephant-Lawsuit
Bronx Zoo elephant “Happy” strolls inside the zoo’s Asia display. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Original Conservationists

While this is an absurd story, men and women in the hunting community should keep an eye on these – seemingly ridiculous – claims, as they could set a dangerous precedent for hunting. These groups are all too eager to ignore the benefits that hunting yields in terms of science-backed wildlife population management and industry-funded conservation efforts.

Every time a hunter or sports shooter purchases a firearm or ammunition, a percentage is dedicated to wildlife conservation efforts nationwide through the Pittman-Robertson Act. Conserving these habitats and species is the ultimate animal rights effort. North American wildlife is at the healthiest levels ever, because of the efforts of hunter-conservationists.

Promote, Protect, Preserve

NSSF is working to make sure these extremist views don’t sneak into our communities and that the tradition of hunting is preserved for future generations.  That’s why we have worked to ensure hunting as a constitutional right in 23 states, mostly through the ballot box where the majority of voters have a say, not small fringe groups.

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation works, and the firearms and ammunition industry supports the sportsman-funded work to sustain and provide public access to resources, all without the bizarre argument that the animals have human rights.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel at National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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72 COMMENTS

      • I’m OK giving every Elephant status as an “extraordinarily complex” creature and be elevated to human right status…. as soon as every leftist, progressive, and Democrat is declared an “extraordinarily uncomplex” creature, and be reduced to non-voting rights.

      • Try “starting in 2018 or earlier.” Not yet on the radar of most leftists, but the transhuman movement has been trying to lay a foundation for that for years.

      • That is not an unreasonable position to take when robots have high level functioning AI and become self aware. This has been an issue in sci-fi for decades. FWIW, many of those sci-fi writers are/have been hard core conservatives, like Robert Heinlein.

        • Not so much these days, it seems.

          Check out Sarah Hoyt’s blog for commentary on same…

        • And especially since at the current state of the art most robots are significantly more intelligent than Demoncraps. That is why Demoncraps have been slowly but progressively losing their status as human/person. It must be true since they are doing it themselves. First a human who just happens to temporarily reside in a womb, then those who recently moved out, have been deemed nonperson by the Demoncraps. What next?

        • True non-heuristic AI is impossible with current technology. You can get a heuristic AI to pass a Turing test, but that doesn’t make it anything more than a collection of neatly arranged equations. Until we get quantum computing figured out, all AI will ever be is a collection of boxes spitting out the “right” answer.

          As for “robot” rights… most of it is just feminazis realizing how eminently replaceable they will be in a couple of decades. After all, who needs a feminazi harridan in their life when you can buy a fully functional gynoid house servant that can carry a genetically engineered baby to term in a built-in artificial womb?

          The old feminist saying is that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

          Well feminazis. In a few years, a man will need a woman like a bicycle needs a fish.

        • Serge, you sound like a guy who has been chewed up and spit out by the woman in his life. Bitter. Yet some of your points are valid. Younger women have been socially engineered to be anti men and anti family. It’s an attack on the family, community, and society itself. You have to work your way through that shit and find the decent women out there. They still exist.

    • When you think an XY can declare itself XX just by putting on a dress it logically follows that elephants are people too. And you can be an elephant, whale or other creature.

        • I thought I had a pretty good concept of how big they were until we were driving along a dirt road in Botswana and found ourselves in the middle of a herd and had to stop.

          I was awestruck. A big bull was standing there, eating a rather good sized tree.
          It dwarfed the 4 door Land Rover truck we were in.
          Then looking around at the swath of good sized trees that had been knocked down and denuded.
          Holy crap!
          Yeah. They are really effing huge!

    • Anyone that’s anti hunting has no real knowledge of the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom is constant viscous warfare, famine, and disease. A well placed bullet is the quickest and most humane death a wild animal can receive.

      • That’s a pretty ignorant statement. Many species adjust from R selection to K selected offspring in the face of famine and restricted resources. Some animals like coyotes have been known to pair up with other species to hunt. You blatantly assume that people who are for cleaning up the activities have never hunted before, or never used to be pro-hunting.

        Some people legitimately hunt for food but there are plenty more that hunt for the pleasure of killing. The whole industry is marketed around recreation. The hunting community routinely calling for extermination of anything that isn’t a “game animal” and refuses to police their own, thus I’m forced to err into the direction of more restrictions on it until the industry decides to clean its self up.

        • Now you sound just like a delusional leftist. How many times have we heard that ‘gun owners need to police themselves or we’ll do it for them’?

          As for animals. How many die of old age? As opposed to how many get to old to run and wind up being eaten alive?

        • ‘Anyone who has opinions I don’t like is just a delusional leftist!’ JWM, are you sure you are not projecting?

          Not only is gun ownership a constitutionally affirmed right, but gun owners don’t go around killing for pleasure. Its a night and day difference between animals eating each other and people killing for pleasure. One results in cruelty as an unfortunate byproduct, the other makes cruelty the object of desire.

          How many of live to old age really depends on the animal in question. It could be argued that being too old to out run, and too old to hunt is more or less death from old age.

          I get it though, you still got a hard on for me and always drop in to my comments. <3

        • I forgot to add that hunting is not a constitutionally affirmed right and is absolutely subject to restrictions.

        • Arc that’s a completely ignorant statement. You seem like one of those lefty academic types, with little knowledge of what the real world is actually like. Since I’m willing to bet you rarely ever leave your house, I’d suggest throwing on just about any nature documentary not made by Disney, and you’ll quickly find what Waylon stated is pretty accurate.

    • The Left denies that Life begins at conception. Fry up a couple of Eagle Eggs for your breakfast and see what happens to you.

  1. Court finds animals not humans.

    “Well, no shit; I admire your honesty, hell you can come over and f##k my sister”
    R Lee Ermey ~ Fullmetal jacket.

  2. First world problems. Spoiled rich kids with no direction in life and having never known hardship make up the core of these ‘groups’. We are a wealthy nation where even our ‘poor’ have a high standard of living.

    And its only going to get worse. The only cure for first world problems is to let bernie get the oval office. We’ll be 3rd world and eating those transhumans soon after.

    • Weak men create hard times. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. And the cycle continues…. we’re throughly in the “weak men create hard times” phase. Given that this cycle has been the case through literally the entirety of recorded history: thousands of years, you’d think morons would have accepted it by now. But apparently not, human fallibility and stupidity is one of the few true constants of the universe, apparently

      • In my neighborhood the homeless wear Nike sneakers, Gucci jackets and Louis Vuitton bags and eat out of five star restaurant dumpsters. I couldn’t make this up.

  3. Yes, the purpose of these suits is to stop hunting and zoos, to “free” these conserved species. I assume that this was the same group that tried to argue that a wild chimpanzee/orangutan “owned” the right to their pictures, and that the photog/publisher should pay royalties. They lost.

    People of similar ilk are those interfering with animal culls in state and national parks that have become overcrowded, to “save the animals from the evil hunters.” The stupidity of these folks is beyond the pale. There are more an more neighborhoods being overrun by deer that cannot be legally hunted. I wonder what they will say when the dead bodies of the starved start stinking up their yards.

    • No – he was an ex-president that did not have sexual relations with that woman. Yet he had sex with Killary. Now there is an animal living as a human – or is it the other way around? Hmmm…

  4. Animals aren’t humans but if I kick a K9 I’m charged with assaulting a police officer. It’s a frickin dog controlled by a Nazi wannabe just itching to sic his four legged police officer onto a human. I hatem….and what animal would want to be a human anyway? Weak dependant creatures humans are. Always needing something, a house, a car, a refrigerator, electricity, pills,, the world without humans could get along just fine.

    • There’s more to police use of dogs. It is no secret that dogs act on “cues” from their “handlers”, no more.
      Police LOVE dogs because they can and often are used to justify a normally illegal unjustifiable search.
      All one has to do is look at the encouragement that police dog handlers give their dogs, scratching people’s cars and soiling their interiors just because they can…
      Police get a perverse joy out of using their dogs to entrap honest people…to justify illegal searches…

        • Oh please. I bet your too out of shape to be threat to anyone and even too fat to carry your gun. So save the internet tough guy routine. You’ve never been in real fight and you’d likely submit in any real confrontation.

        • Yeah… I’d do the same, and I’m in fairly good shape and love dogs. Anybody who forgets that a dog is one bad day away from becoming a wolf is deluding themselves.

      • If Officer Teeth is given the signal and attacks me and I kick him while Officer Teeth chews my leg off I get charged with assault and battery on a police officer. I’ve nothing against dogs used for trailing or sniffing explosives or drugs Something is wrong when uniformed officers command an
        Attack Dog to maul someone while screaming “Don’t move” and getting a hard on all the while. They are mentally sick, and have no place in( Free Country) Law Enforcement.,,,I HATEM

  5. Do animals have rights like a human does? NO!
    Should they? NO!

    On the other hand, yummy animals have every right to be eaten. In particular various beef bearing critters, assorted turkey and chicken critters, the odd bacon producing porcine, etc etc etc. It is not my fault that some animals are yummy, or that their body parts are attracted to BBQ restaurants and or my own kitchen. If some animals prefer not to be eaten, they should immediately cease and desist from being yummy.

    If a four-hooved beast isn’t smart enough to be inedible and lacking in deliciousness, the critter has no one to blame but its own self.,

    On the other hand ….

    Some wild critters I’d rather see left alone. Some are rare and and some are kind of amazing. Some will stomp you down to a greasy spot if you are rude to them, or just because they darned well feel like it at the moment. I do wonder about African safaris and the honesty of game management over there but not enough to get political about it.

    Also, I like pie.

    In case anybody was wondering.

    • But what kind of pie?

      I’m a hunter. I do not propose a ban on any type of hunting. I just would not hunt an elephant if it was legal and I could afford it. But that’s just me.

    • tastes vary. while the majestic canadian goose makes some effort to help extinguish wild fires, the nocturnal, shy chinese pangolin may be responsible for a significant market correction.
      pie. if you find a tarter cherry than the elegant farmer you will pucker. dad was a gooseberry, but he was wrong.
      heffalumps. my mom would beat me to death with the nearest object within reach.
      when i was ten she said, “don’t kill any more bunnies.” she eats hasenpfeffer though.

  6. We should put these animals-have-human-rights activists into a conference room with some lions and tigers and let them have a civilized conversation about the “human rights” topics. I’m certain the lions and tigers will be reasonable and rational in making their collective case. The activists should be more than willing to hear the voices of these objectified “humans,” yes?

    • Neither human rights nor civil rights, apply to animals. That said, they do have the right to not be abused, not taken in vain and its the duty of mankind to be good stewards of what was put under his control.

      People are so damn polarized in this age that its either full on human rights to animals or nothing at all.

  7. This is asinine, of course elephants aren’t human. They do have a higher degree of Intelligence and cognitive ability than certain tribal humans, and that should count for something, but human they are not.

  8. So the left thinks that animals should have human rights but do not view conservatives or anyone who supports Trump as actually human. Or worthy of life for that matter.

  9. IF the elephant is a human with human rights, give that elephant a GUN.
    Now see if you can keep him captive in the Zoo.
    Let me know how that works. out for ya.

  10. As a pet owner, animals do have personalities. No two are the same. Being unnecessarily harsh to the point of cruelty is wrong. We all agree as a civilized society that there is a point reached that is considered inhuman. Otherwise, we would not have the Pittman-Robertson act.

    That being said, we have been given domain over them. We also have certain responsibilities to insure both their safety and ours. One of the ways we do this is through population control.

    I don’t hunt but that’s only because it just isn’t my thing. I see nothing wrong with hunting if it’s done correctly and humanely. I am a carnivore.

  11. As I see it a woman has the right to get pregnant or not, but she does not have the right to kill the fetus after it has been conceived. Why is it ok to kill babies after they have been conceived, but it’s not ok to execute murderer after they have been convicted. It’s really a screwed up world.

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