Free Republic

(Reuters/REUTERS - An orangutan named Sandra, covered with a blanket, gestures inside its cage at Buenos Aires' Zoo, in this December 8, 2010 file photo. An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed) BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - 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...

An orangutan named Sandra, at the center of a landmark ruling in Argentina that said she is a "non-human person" entitled to some of the same rights as humans, is making her way to a Florida sanctuary where great apes enjoy those privileges without benefit of a court order. Once Sandra is there, the 33-year-old orangutan will have the company of others in her species for the first time in many years. Sandra left her solitary world at a zoo in Buenos Aires in late September and is currently in Kansas, where she'll remain in quarantine until she's cleared to...