Legal battle centers on ‘captive’ chimps’ rights

Should chimpanzees – complex creatures with thoughts, feelings and the ability to learn sign language – have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Steven Wise, an animal rights attorney from Coral Springs, Florida, has bet his career on it.

Our cousin the ape is poised to take an evolutionary new step – this time across the threshold into the courthouse.

Leading the legal effort is Wise, 64, founder, president and chief litigator of the Nonhuman Rights Project.

Wednesday, Wise will argue that two of his clients – chimps Leo and Hercules, being used for research at Stony Brook University in Long Island – have fundamental rights that protect them from being held captive.

Judge and jury: New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe, the first judge to order a university to explain why it is holding a chimp captive.

A courtroom victory could herald the end of chimps’ use in biomedical research, animal rights advocates say.

“If we win, it’s one baby step forward,” said Wise, whose efforts are part of an international movement to establish rights for the great ape, humans’ closest relative.

“We think Leo and Hercules have been locked in cages for six years,” Wise said. “They suffer the way we would suffer if we were imprisoned in a cage. They can remember the past and they can imagine the future. We’re just trying to get them out of there.”

Stony Brook spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow declined comment, citing the pending litigation.

“The main thing is, can you get a hearing?” Wise said. “And that was the big breakthrough. The first three judges said, ‘Get out of my courtroom, a chimp is not a person.’ This judge issued the writ of habeas corpus, which is meant to protect us from being held against our will. And that was a huge step forward.”

Following the case closely are people on the other side of the issue, researchers and scientists.

“Historically, chimpanzees have made invaluable contributions to science and medicine, including the development of vaccines for hepatitis A and B,” said Frankie Trull, president of the Foundation for Biomedical Research in Washington. “Chimpanzees have helped scientists gain important insights into diseases such as hepatitis C, malaria, HIV and cancer.”

Should Wise win in court, Leo and Hercules would be released to the Save the Chimps wildlife sanctuary in Fort Pierce, Florida, he said, even while the university files a likely appeal.

Wise and his legal team plan to keep litigating as long as it takes, until they find a judge willing to see chimps as beings deserving fundamental rights.

“We are pushing in New York and other states” as well as other countries, said Wise, who estimates that about 3,000 chimps are being held in captivity in this country alone.

For Wise, the upcoming court battle has been decades in the making. A graduate of Boston University Law School, Wise has practiced animal protection law for 30 years.

He argues that chimps should not be kept as household pets or exploited as entertainment in roadside zoos.

“No one should be able to imprison a chimpanzee in any environment, however one labels it, that does not allow her to live an autonomous and self-determining chimpanzee life with sufficient space to roam and climb, alongside a sufficiently large enough number of other chimpanzees, both males and females,” Wise said.

His legal argument is not based on a rallying cry that chimps are people, but rather that they are “legal persons” as opposed to things.

“We chose chimps because we thought the scientific evidence was very strong that they are autonomous and have self-determination,” he said.