[monkeywire] Monkey See, Monkey Sue (for Legal Custody)
Carrie McLaren
temporary181 at stayfreemagazine.org
Sun Aug 5 15:25:25 EDT 2007
Monkey See, Monkey Sue (for Legal Custody)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20121797/site/newsweek/
Newsweek
Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Are chimpanzees more like babies or bicycles?
Put another way: are they beings with basic rights, or property to be
returned to an owner? The answer may decide the fate of Emma and
Jackson, two chimps at the center of a custody battle between animal
sanctuaries in Texas and Oregon.
The pair were among more than 200 animals removed from San Antonio's
Primarily Primates Inc. after the facility was sued last year for
misusing funds and maintaining unsanitary and dangerous conditions.
Now the suit has been settled, and PPI is petitioning to reclaim some
of the creatures. Emma and Jackson's new home, Oregon's Chimps, Inc.,
doesn't want to return them. "To return them to the scene of the
crime, if you will, is no different than returning a young child to
an abuse situation and saying, 'Everything's better now'," says Bruce
Wagman, an animal-law specialist representing Chimps, Inc., and
others battling PPI.
"This isn't about establishing rights for animals," says Priscilla
Feral, president of the animal-advocacy group Friends of Animals,
which took over PPI's operations this year. (The center has spent
$100,000 rebuilding its facilities, including a new 6,000-foot chimp
enclosure, and has increased staffing.) "Those animals belong to
Primarily Primates. They will have wonderful care, and they deserve
to come back. The legal documents support that, and that ought to be
sufficient."
Animal welfare is a relatively new legal argument, one that doesn't
yet trump claims of ownership, says Michigan State law professor and
animal-rights expert David Favre. But the two arguments may not be
mutually exclusive-animals can remain property and still acquire
rights. "Some judges are not finding it incongruous to acknowledge
that animals are part of the 'prop world,' but because they're such
unique, living property, they also ought to look at the best
interests of the animals," Favre says. So where ownership is at all
vague or questionable, emerging concern for animal rights may tip the
scale.
-Sanhita Sen
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