09/06/99
Time South Pacific
By Golden, Frederic
Magazine: Time South Pacific; September 6, 1999
Section: Nature
A PLAINTIFF CRY FOR ANIMALS
KANZI THE CHIMP HAS performed some impressive linguistic [feats during his time at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, not just mastering scores of English words but also putting them together to form simple sentences. As far as anyone knows, however, Kanzi has never tapped out, "I want out of here. Get me my attorney." Maybe he should learn. It may be a stretch to suggest that the talkative primate could win his freedom in a court of law-but then again, perhaps the concept of habeas chimpus is not that farfetched after all. Though English common law has long regarded animals as property, subject to the whims of their owners, some legal scholars are now promoting what they consider a more enlightened idea: animals, they say, should have the same constitutional rights as we do to redress wrongs inflicted on them. They ought, in effect, to be treated as "persons." These experts are serious, though you wouldn't know it from the public's reaction. When prestigious Harvard and Georgetown law schools recently announced that they were adding animal-law courses to their curriculums, TV talk shows, op-ed pages and water-cooler comics had a field day. (Sample joke: What's a pet subject at Harvard? Animal law. And who takes it? Legal beagles.)
But there's no denying that the animal-rights movement is getting increasingly legalistic. At least 10 other law schools subsequently disclosed that they already teach animal law-and it's not just a rehash of existing, only occasionally enforced anticruelty statutes. This new specialty has some 30 largely full-time practitioners spread across the country and hundreds of other attorneys who do it on a part-time, often pro bono basis. "We've spent 20 years developing this area of the law," says Sandra Tisehler, co-founder and executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, based in Petaluma, Calif. "Now we're pushing the envelope until we can press a ease in which the animal is the plaintiff." She may be getting closer. Last year, in a decision regarded as a landmark by animal-fights advocates, the U.S. court of appeals in Washington upheld the right of a visitor to a Long Island, N.Y., game farm and zoo to demand companionship for a lonely chimp named Barney under 1985 amendments to the Federal Animal Welfare Act protecting "the psychological well-being of primates." (By then, Barney had already been shot dead after skipping out of his cage and biting someone.) Lowlier creatures are profiting from the legal attention too. Facing the possibility of an injunction by the state supreme court, sponsors of a controversial live-pigeon shoot in Hegins, Pa., last month scrubbed the big annual event after 65 years. Human concern about animal rights is hardly new. In medieval times, Roman Catholic theologians debated whether animals had souls and could go to heaven (yes, some concluded, even though their souls were of a lesser sort). Modern interest in the subject owes much to bioethicist Peter Singer, author of the now classic 1975 book Animal Liberation and a newly (and controversially) appointed professor at Princeton, who argues that our domination of other species is morally indefensible. Singer, whose philosophical views on mercy killing, not animal rights, offended right-to-liers, welcomes the new legal concerns. Says he: "The law has been terribly slow to catch up with peoples' more enlightened views animals." That enlightened is at least part because of researchers like Jane Goodall. When she first began studying chimps in East Africa in the 1970s, she recalls, fellow scientists regularly berated her for identifying her subjects by name rather than by numbers and for suggesting they were capable of such emotions as anger, fear, even jealousy, to say nothing of experiencing pain. Pure anthropomorphism they sniffed. Since then, as a result of the patient observations of Goodall and researchers like Frans de Waal, author of Peacemaking Among Primates, it has become accepted wisdom that animals, especially gifted ones like bonobos, or pygmy chimps, engage in interactions almost as complex as those of human society, rewarding allies with favors such as sex, food and grooming and punishing enemies with ostracism, even banishment. Says De Wall: "The emotional life of these animals is much closer to ours than once held possible." For animal-rights enthusiasts, these findings are the ammunition they have long sought. Harvard Law's animal-rights professor Steven M. Wise, who once represented a captive dolphin named Rainbow in a suit against an aquarium, says that the same laws that established legal rights for slaves should be used on behalf of animals. To traditional legal scholars, the concept is preposterous, if not demeaning. "What's next? Will they say it's immoral to own pets?" asks University of Chicago torts expert Richard A. Epstein. For the time being probably not, as animal-rights lawyers concentrate on establishing the rights of our immediate relatives, leaving the plight of lesser creatures for the future. Some are even talking of bringing what they call " a great ape case." If that happens, Kanzi might yet be able to make a pitch for his freedom in court. ~~~~~~~~
By Frederic Golden
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