Three New York courts have rejected one group’s legal effort to grant captive chimpanzees in that state the same rights as a “legal person.”
The Nonhuman Rights Project filed three separate suits on behalf of four chimpanzees in New York state last week in a bid to secure for Tommy, Kiko, Hercules and Leo — all male chimps held in various parts of the state — the “right to bodily liberty.”
The lawsuits asked that the four chimpanzees be moved to a sanctuary “where they can live out their days with others of their kind in an environment as close to the wild as is possible in North America,” the group said.
The group says it will appeal the courts’ decisions.
“These outcomes allow the NhRP to proceed to the appellate courts,” NhRP spokeswoman Stacey Doss told CNN.
