Free Republic

An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognized the ape as a "non-human person" unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday. Animal rights campaigners filed a habeas corpus petition - a document more typically used to challenge the legality of a person's detention or imprisonment - in November on behalf of Sandra, a 29-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Buenos Aires zoo. In a landmark ruling that could pave the way for more lawsuits, the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) argued the ape...

I have been warning you and warning you: It just takes one judge, wanting to make history, to kick the props out from under our tottering societal embrace of human exceptionalism. In Argentina–next door to Brazil, where a judge was previously poised to grant a writ of habeas corpus to a chimp when the animal died–a court has declared an orangutan a “person.” From the Reuters story: An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognized the ape as a “non-human person” unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported...