NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- The Bronx Zoo reacted Friday to a bill introduced in the New York City Council that would ban elephant captivity in the city.
The bill was introduced Thursday by Brooklyn Council Member Shahana Hanif.
“I was proud to introduce #Intro963 to finally ban elephant capacity in New York City,” Hanif tweeted, referring to the legislation filing.
“Studies have shown that elephants are emotionally complex and suffer deeply in inadequate enclosures,” she wrote.
According to the City Council website, the bill would “prohibit the keeping, restraint, or possession of elephants in the city unless certain enumerated conditions concerning adequate habitat and treatment are met.”
Among the nine conditions are that the habitat must be a minimum of 15 acres per elephant and that elephants can’t be used in “educational or commercial exhibitions” or made to do labor. It would also require elephants have “stimuli necessary for emotional and physical wellbeing” and the ability to “forage for food and water throughout the habitat.” Elephants also must be housed in herds or near other elephants if solitary.
The Bronx Zoo, which is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, dismissed the legislation in a statement. The zoo was at the center of an unsuccessful effort last year by animal rights advocates, who sought to release an elephant named Happy from confinement. A second elephant named Patty also lives at the zoo.
“The bill is full of general, boilerplate language regarding elephants, references issues that are not relevant and does not consider our two elephants as individuals with distinct personalities,” the zoo said.
The zoo also called out the Florida-based Nonhuman Rights Project, which mounted the recent legal challenge to Happy’s confinement and reportedly worked with Hanif to craft the new bill.
The zoo said the group has “harassed the Bronx Zoo for years with nuisance lawsuits in a failed attempt to force us to move the elephants.”
“They have lost in every court ruling and are now looking for another tactic to advance an anti-zoo agenda,” the zoo said.
“This proposed bill is an obvious attempt to legislate their philosophy on elephants and infringe on the ability of the Bronx Zoo to make informed decisions for individual animals in our care based on intimate knowledge of those animals and their specific personalities and individual needs,” it continued in the statement.
The Bronx Zoo, which is the only zoo in the city that keeps elephants, reportedly plans to close its elephant exhibit when either Happy or Patty dies over concerns it'd be inhumane to keep a social animal alone.
Last summer, the Bronx Zoo scored a victory when the state Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that Happy the elephant cannot be considered a person being illegally confined to the zoo.
In the closely watched case, advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project argued Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person.”
The operators of the Bronx Zoo argued Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant “respected as the magnificent creature she is.”
Courtney Fern, of the Nonhuman Rights Project, told The City this week that if passed, the new City Council bill “would be the first elephant captivity ban in the U.S.”
“And I think it’s an important step to helping end elephant suffering,” Fern said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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