“It’s about enforcing rights they already have under animal cruelty laws and other protection laws. “Legal personhood is just the ability to have your interest heard and represented in court,” Berry said. In another closely watched case, the New York court of appeals, the state’s highest court, agreed in May to decide whether an elephant at the Bronx Zoo should be granted legal personhood and be moved to a sanctuary. While animals have been granted legal rights in India, Pakistan and Argentina, courts in the US have been unwilling to do so until now.Ī judge in Connecticut called a petition filed four years ago by an animal rights group to grant personhood to three elephants in a traveling petting zoo “wholly frivolous”. Although the so-called cocaine hippos have been accused. Well, not Escobar exactly, but a group of nearly 80 hippos descended from the four he owned that were set free after his death in 1993. We’re just asking that animals have the ability to enforce the rights that have already been given to them.” Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar left a legacy of crime and violence in his country but his most lasting influence may be on the environment. “This really is part of a bigger movement of advocating that animals’ interest be represented in court,” he said. They pointed to a federal statute that allows anyone who is an “interested person” in a foreign lawsuit to ask a federal court to permit them to take depositions in the US in support of their case.Ĭhristopher Berry, the lead attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, called it a narrow but profound ruling. A group of hippos - an unwanted legacy following the death of notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo. Their attorneys argued that because advocates for the hippos can bring lawsuits to protect their interests in Colombia, the hippos should be considered “interested persons” under US law. The hippos at Pablo Escobars former estate are believed to be the biggest herd outside Africa. The animal rights group based near San Francisco said it believed it was the first time animals have been declared legal persons in the US. In the suit, attorneys for the Animal Legal Defense Fund asked the US district court in Cincinnati to give “interested persons” status to the hippos so that two wildlife experts in sterilization from Ohio could be deposed in the case.įederal magistrate judge Karen Litkovitz in Cincinnati granted the request on 15 October. His huge former ranch, the Hacienda Npoles, has been converted into a wildlife theme park and one of its biggest inhabitants are growing out of control. The man left an unusual legacy involving hippos that is causing problems many years after his demise. These four thousand pound beasts are survivors from the era of Pablo Escobar who smuggled in four of them from a US zoo in the nineteen eighties. A government agency has started sterilizing some of the hippos, but there is a debate on what are the safest methods. Pablo Escobar’s hippos are causing a ruckus in Columbia. They are advocating for some of the animals to be killed. A group of scientists has warned that the hippos pose a threat to the area’s biodiversity and could lead to deadly encounters with humans.
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