Lawsuit: Three Elephants In Goshen Zoo Are ‘Persons’ With Legal Rights

A lawsuit filed Monday argues that three elephants at the Commerford Zoo in Goshen are legal “persons” with fundamental rights and must be released into a sanctuary.

The Nonhuman Rights Project filed the lawsuit on behalf of Beulah, Karen and Minnie — three elephants captured in the wild and now living at the zoo — at Superior Court in Torrington.

“‘Person’ is not a synonym for ‘human being,’ but designates an entity with the capacity for legal rights,” the lawsuit claims.

The elephants, between 36 and and 50 years old, were used for decades in circuses, fairs and other forms of entertainment, a release from the organization said.

“This is not an animal welfare case,” Steven M. Wise, president and founder of the NhRP, said in the release. “We do not claim the Commerford Zoo is violating any animal welfare statutes. What they are doing is depriving Beulah, Karen, and Minnie of their freedom, which we see as an inherently cruel violation of their most fundamental right as elephants.”

The Commerford Zoo did not return a request for comment. The zoo’s website says it has elephants, camels, ponies and more, and provides animals, rides and other amusements for fairs and events along the East Coast.

“We work hard to give our animals a good home,” the zoo’s website says. “They are well taken care of and we have strict rules about when and how they work.”

The NhRP is asking the court to release the elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society’s ARK 2000 natural habitat sanctuary.

“Our understanding of elephants has only deepened over time: for example, we know they have a sense of self, remember the past and plan for the future, engage in complex communication, show empathy, and mourn their dead,” said David Zabel, the NhRP’s local counsel in Connecticut and a partner at the law firm of Cohen & Wolf. “But their legal status as ‘things’ with no rights has remained exactly the same. What’s at stake here is the freedom of beings who are no less self-aware and autonomous than we humans are.”

The organization said the first elephant rights case is “grounded in abundant, robust scientific evidence of elephants autonomy.”

“Common law courts must catch up to what we know about members of this extraordinarily complex species and how they suffer — precisely because they are autonomous — when businesses like Commerford force them to perform at circuses and fairs and live in environments completely unsuited to their needs,” Wise said. “The time has come for them to be transferred to a sanctuary out of respect for their rights. We will not rest until this happens.”