Brooklyn Councilmember Shahanah Hanif‘s bill proposing a citywide elephant captivity ban has drawn pushback from several Bronx politicos, including some of her colleagues on the City Council, who believe the legislation is unfairly targeting the Bronx Zoo and its two elephants Happy and Patty.
Hanif’s bill, which she announced at a Thursday press conference, would prohibit elephants to be kept or constrained in enclosures throughout the city unless certain conditions were met. The Bronx Zoo is the only zoo in New York City currently home to elephants.
The conditions outlined in the bill stipulates a legal elephant enclosure to include 15 acres per elephant, a cohabitation with other elephants and a habitat that can mimic the elephant’s natural surroundings. The bill would also prevent elephants in enclosures to be used for educational or commercial exhibits, and requires the owners of an elephant enclosure to have a permit and license to do so, which would be conditional based on meeting the aforementioned conditions set forth in the bill.
In a statement to the Bronx Times, the Wildlife Conservation Society — which owns and operates the Bronx Zoo — said the bill does not consider Happy and Patty as two distinct elephants with distinct personalities, and called it “another tactic” by the The Nonhuman Rights Group (NhRP) after legal attempts to get the zoo to release Happy failed in the state Court of Appeals last summer.
“NhRP has harassed the Bronx Zoo for years with nuisance lawsuits in a failed attempt to force us to move the elephants. They have lost in every court ruling and are now looking for another tactic to advance an anti-zoo agenda,” the statement reads. “This proposed bill is an obvious attempt to legislate their philosophy on elephants and infringe on the ability of the Bronx Zoo to make informed decisions for individual animals in our care based on intimate knowledge of those animals and their specific personalities and…
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