How are corporations people but elephants are not?

This is a case of “Dude, choose your battles.” The fricken’ Colorado Renaissance Festival is half an hour down the road and they have elephants they treated like shit for years (things are somewhat better now, but far from perfect).

But meanwhile you take your case up with a modern, professional, scientific, state funded zoo that has elephants just like every other zoo in the country, (and knows more about how to house and care for them than you do… what’s your plan, transport them back to Africa and release them into the wild??)

I don’t disagree at all that elephants should get better treatment and more respect from humans than they do. Someone should absolutely be (and I’m glad someone is) arguing the case for non-human persons. The science is really in on this, but public opinion is WAY behind and the law is probably even farther behind. That wasn’t going to change here.

This whole lawsuit was waste a donor money on a publicity stunt, when WAY MORE WORTHY TARGETS, where they could actually do some good, are right next door. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo doesn’t deserve this. They put a ton of money, energy and time into conservation and educating the public. Their breeding program is the reason black footed ferrets are doing as well as they are in the wild. They participate in a whole bunch of endangered species breeding and reintroduction programs.

The NHRP could have done a LOT MORE GOOD and gotten actual public sympathy by going after CRF, even if they ultimately lost their case. Instead, they chose to harass a zoo that lots of people love and that has done lots of good work. That might get them some page views and some donations from radical vegans who haven’t actually thought the situation through, but it’s not going to change a damn thing, and it is going to waste resources that could have gone to upgrading habitats or preserving endangered species. I am unimpressed.