Nonhuman Rights Project president Steven Wise spoke to members of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund and Law School faculty members Thursday about the NhRP’s legal efforts on behalf of chimpanzees.
The mission of the NhRP is to fight for the legal rights of animals, beginning with cognitively complex animals such as chimpanzees, elephants and whales. The organization’s long term goal is to break through legal boundaries to redefine what constitutes personhood, according to the Nonhuman Rights Project’s website.
Wise highlighted the case of Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees owned by the New Iberia Research Center, a research outlet of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. NhRP first became involved in Hercules and Leo’s case while the two chimpanzees were on loan to Stony Brook University’s Department of Anatomical Sciences for locomotion research.
While undergoing research at Stony Brook University, Wise said the chimpanzees were subjected to repeated rounds of general anesthesia, had wires thrust into their muscles and were isolated in a basement.
Though chimpanzees aren’t human, they are cognitively complex and know they don’t want to be detained in cages, Wise said. The challenge is applying this complexity to the chimpanzees in a court of law.
“There is this great wall, a legal wall that separates all the things from all the persons,” Wise said. “If you had looked at where that wall was and who was on the ‘thing’ side and who was on the person side 200 years ago, you would have seen that all nonhuman animals were on the ‘thing’ side, but that there were many human beings on the ‘thing’ side too.”
Wise said the Nonhuman Rights Project aims to move chimpanzees and other highly cognitive animals from the “thing” side of the wall to the human side. NhRP first filed on behalf of Hercules and Leo in the New York State Supreme Court in December 2013.
The inspiration behind the case’s defense came from the 1772 case of Somerset v. Stewart, in which James Somerset, a slave, was granted legal rights under a writ of habeas corpus. Somerset’s case was the first time a person on the law’s “thing” side was granted legal standing exclusive to individuals on the human side, Wise said.
NhRP then based the legal argument on the chimpanzee’s autonomy, asserting that since chimpanzees are scientifically proven to be autonomous beings they are entitled to fundamental liberty and autonomy, Wise said.
The case was denied and appealed several times before it was heard by New York County Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe in May 2015. Though Jaffe’s July 2015 ruling was favorable, she did not grant Hercules and Leo’s freedom based on a higher court’s ruling in a similar NhRP case.
While NhRP was filing an appeal on Hercules and Leo’s behalf, the two chimpanzees were “spirited away” to New Iberia Research Center, Wise said. Out of the reach of the New York courts, the case was dropped.
Wise and NhRP are now working to free the chimpanzees from what renowned primate researcher Jane Goodall called in an email to Wise, a “ghastly, ghastly place.” Goodall serves on NhRP’s board and has contributed scientific and behavioral research to support the organization’s legal cases.
The NhRP has arranged for the chimpanzees to be transferred to Save the Chimps, a nonprofit chimpanzee sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida. Save the Chimps would assume all financial obligations, including the estimated $2 million cost to maintain the chimpanzees for their estimated life expectancy, Wise said.
Currently, Louisiana taxpayers pay $16,000 to maintain each chimpanzee each year, Wise said. In addition to Hercules and Leo, the NIRC has approximately 230 chimpanzees in its facility, amounting to roughly $3.68 million for Louisiana taxpayers each year.
Under a September 2015 ruling from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, captive chimpanzees are no longer allowed to be used as research subjects for biomedical research because of their endangered species status.
Wise said NIRC has refused to transfer Hercules and Leo to the sanctuary unless Save the Chimps agrees to sign a non-disparagement agreement barring them from discussing details about Hercules and Leo or mentioning NIRC in the future.
Unable to persuade NIRC to release Hercules and Leo, Wise said NhRP began a Change.org petition Tuesday. The organization is also reaching out to Gov. John Bel Edwards and University of Louisiana System interim president Daniel D. Reneau Jr. to call for the chimpanzees’ release.
“It’s not a matter of loving animals or even liking animals,” Wise said. “It’s a matter of justice. It’s the feeling that they are entitled to justice.”
Second year law student Stephanie Buehler, the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund vice president, said caring for animals and providing them with service is important, but action is needed.
“I feel like it’s important to do more action than just lip service for helping animals,” Buehler said. “It’s nice when you’re going to share a post on Facebook, but actually getting out there and doing something about it is very important and I think we need more of it.”