When you look at this photo of Happy taken on Sunday by an NhRP supporter, what do you see?
We see the toll that a half century of captivity has had on Happy, once again on full display in the Bronx Zoo elephant exhibit yard.
We see the Bronx Zoo’s continued denials that anything is wrong, either with Happy or with anything pertaining to their imprisonment of elephants.
We see an autonomous being who’s tired in every cell of her body and who may very well be in physical pain.
We see a legal system that continues to treat nonhuman animals like they’re mere resources for human use.
We see an elephant who needs your help now more than ever.
Happy has been observed lying down on the ground in the exhibit yard several times this week. As far as is known, this pattern of lying down in the exhibit yard isn’t normal for Happy. We and the elephant experts we’ve consulted with continue to suspect something is seriously wrong with Happy and the zoo won’t acknowledge it publicly.
We shared the above photo on Instagram and Facebook this week along with our thoughts. Today, drawing on our social media posts, the New York Post published a story about Happy’s reappearance, including commentary by the NhRP and the usual insistence from the Bronx Zoo that the public is worrying needlessly, that we don’t know Happy like they know Happy, and that Happy is choosing how to spend her days. The mere fact that the Bronx Zoo still confines elephants in an exhibit shows that they know nothing about elephants. If the Bronx Zoo truly cared about elephants’ freedom of choice, Happy and Patty would be in a sanctuary already.
We know our supporters are wholly committed to freeing Happy and Patty, and so are we. The NhRP is going to keep fighting for them, including for the full story to be told and for the passage of the first elephant captivity ban in the US in the city where Happy and Patty are imprisoned.
You can help by sharing the New York Post story and any of our recent posts about Happy on Facebook or Instagram. You can also contact the Bronx Zoo via social media or their customer service line to politely urge them to #FreeHappy and #FreePatty to a sanctuary.
