Does this scare the crap out of anyone else??

[Sweet72947]

PeTA brought a lawsuit in Buenos Aires and the court "freed" an orangutan from a zoo, and it was sent to a sanctuary, because the court recognized the orangutan as a non-human person and granted it the right of freedom.


https://ca.news.yahoo.com/captive-orangutan-human-freedom-argentine-court-rules-203651528.html

 

[lancerandrara]

This is... really freakin strange. At least he's in a sanctuary and not getting a drivers license. LOL

 

[Romy]

The Indian government recognizes cetaceans as non human persons and made it illegal to keep them captive for entertainment. This is the first I've heard of it being extended to a primate. I wonder what the rest of the story is. Maybe the conditions at the zoo were bad enough the court felt it warranted intervention.

ETA: I'm still not understanding how transferring them to a sanctuary is any different from a zoo. Both are facilities that keep them captive. It's not like the orangutang has the freedom to leave the sanctuary and go to McDonalds for a soda or anything. Unless a non human person is able to be returned to their wild environment some kind of physical restraints will always be necessary for them to coexist safely in human society.

 

[Picklepaige]

After watching videos of Koko the gorilla, I'm inclined to believe apes should be given some sort of distinction from most animals.

[YOUTUBE]EWxCM6llL60[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]CYD6KZsOjxw[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]GorgFtCqPEs[/YOUTUBE]

 

[lancerandrara]

After watching videos of Koko the gorilla, I'm inclined to believe apes should be given some sort of distinction from most animals.

If this were the case, I'd hope a few other equally or more intelligent species would also get the same distinction... dolphins, certain species of parrots, and elephants, just to name the few. Dolphins and parrots in particular don't have hands like apes to learn sign language, but their emotions and emotional intelligence are uncannily close to humans.

 

[Romy]

Sad thing is that in many places humans with developmental disabilities don't even have those rights.

 

[Laurelin]

I dunno that gets a bit dicey for me. They always say dogs are very similar in intelligence and emotion to 2 year old human children. How far does it go?

 

[Romy]

The thing is, we already warehouse adult humans with developmental disabilities and until VERY recently did things to them like forced sterilization. I just don't see this working out happily for animals when we can't even avoid violating basic human rights of other people.

I work doing supported living for adults with developmental disabilities. Basically, my job is to take people OUT of institutions, help figure out what kind of physical/emotional supports they need to function safely in society (mostly keeping them safe from other people) and have their basic needs met. Many of those people end up needing full time staff for years, if not the rest of their lives. Which is great because the majority of them do not belong in institutions.

If you start granting animals the same rights AND don't allow them to return to the wild where they don't have to live in close proximity to humans, they are going to require the same type of support. The options are an institution (sanctuary) where they are looked after by caregivers and paradoxically lose most of their freedom anyway. Or they could live more independently with support staff. And there's no country in the world that could afford to pay enough people to become support staff for all the captive great apes etc.