City Bar Urges Immediate Transfer of Happy the Elephant from Bronx Zoo to Sanctuary

Cites City and State Laws and Statutes in Support

The New York City Bar Association is urging New York government officials to take immediate steps to cause the removal and safe transfer of Happy – a 53-year-old female elephant who has been at the Bronx Zoo since 1977 – to an accredited elephant sanctuary, or to prevail upon the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which operates the Zoo, to voluntarily surrender Happy and arrange for her safe transfer to such a sanctuary.

In a letter to Commissioners at the NYC Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), Parks and Recreation, and Cultural Affairs, as well as to City Council members and the NY State Environmental Conservation Department, the City Bar urges the same treatment for the Zoo’s other elephant, Patty.

Happy’s well-being has recently been of great concern after she was reported to have disappeared from public view at the Zoo in July 2024. Upon her re-appearance 10 weeks later, photos showed her lying on her side with significant foot damage.

Beyond Happy’s physical discomfort, expert testimony cited in the letter indicates the elephants’ living conditions are inadequate for these highly intelligent and socially complex animals. “In their natural environment, elephants are in motion the majority of time, spending up to 18 hours a day foraging,” the City Bar writes. “Happy’s lack of mobility – as it seems she was confined indoors rather than walking in her small, one-acre enclosure – is merely one component of the total impoverishment of Happy’s environment (e.g., lack of socialization, lack of exercise, lack of cognitive enrichment, unnatural terrain).” The letter cites the assessment of Dr. Bob Jacobs, a neuroscientist: “Happy’s existence (I hesitate to call it a ‘life’) in the Bronx Zoo reflects her dismal surroundings. Happy no longer appears interested in living, and I can’t blame her….Lack of social interaction with [members of the same species], which is essential for socially sophisticated animals like elephants, further deprives Happy of a meaningful existence. Happy appears to have now retreated into her prison-like barn, no longer interested in the outside world.”

The City Bar asserts that the City has both the authority and the responsibility to act. “First, NYC provides substantial financial support to the WCS for the operation and maintenance of the Bronx Zoo and, accordingly, has a financial interest, if not also a duty, to ensure that appropriations are properly applied. New Yorkers, whose tax money supports these budgets and who care deeply about the physical and psychological well-being of zoo animals, deserve to know that there is adequate oversight by the City of its funding and the zoo fund-recipient, and that the animals under the zoo’s care enjoy robust physical and psychological health.” The letter adds that the City’s ownership of the land on which the Bronx Zoo operates gives it further authority. “Moreover, the NYC DOHMH has jurisdiction over this matter as demonstrated by the fact that an existing NYC law—NYC Health Code §161.01(a)(1)(i)—is the regulatory basis for Happy’s detention at the Bronx Zoo,” the letter states.

On the State level, the City Bar cites an environmental conservation law designed to protect “cruelty, disease, or undue discomfort” and statutes governing animal cruelty and welfare supporting the “seizure of animals…improperly confined or kept.”

The City Bar’s appeal to government officials follows previous appeals directly to the Bronx Zoo. In August 2024, the Nonhuman Rights Project requested Happy’s veterinary records, recent keeper logs and notes, and recent imagery that accurately depicts Happy’s current condition and indoor environment. “The failure of the Bronx Zoo to be responsive to the NhRP’s August 7, 2024 request for records on Happy’s condition and indoor environment indicates that the government can no longer rely upon civic society to secure Happy’s well-being,” the letter states.

The City Bar cites an expert’s assessment that “elephants with serious physical or psychological problems in zoos have usually become more normal functioning elephants when given more appropriate space in a sanctuary”; points to successful precedents, including the Oakland Zoo’s recent transfer of its last captive elephant to a sanctuary in Fall 2024; and identifies The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee and the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California as suitable destinations for both Happy and Patty.

The City Bar’s letter, signed by its President and the Co-Chairs of its Animal Law Committee, concludes, “We implore the City, acting through its various agencies and the City Council, to relieve Happy’s and Patty’s obvious suffering and exercise its powers and/or its influence to allow Happy and Patty the chance to live out the remainder of their lives at an accredited sanctuary, free of the impoverishments they have been forced to endure.”

Read the letter here.

About the Association
The mission of the New York City Bar Association, which was founded in 1870 and has 23,000 members, is to equip and mobilize a diverse legal profession to practice with excellence, promote reform of the law, and uphold the rule of law and access to justice in support of a fair society and the public interest in our community, our nation, and throughout the world. www.nycbar.org